LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

wW-Tfr 

Shelf.', 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MILE-STONE PAPERS, 



DOCTRINAL, ETHICAL, AND EXPERIMENTAL, 



CHRISTIAN PROGRESS, 



DANIEL STEELE, D.D. 

Author of " Love Enthroned," Commentaries, etc 






From strength to strength. — David. 
And grace for grace. — John. 
'E/c TrloTeuc dg ncariv. — Paul 
'Atto oo^c eig dofrv.—Paul. 




NEW YORK: 

JXT IE Xj SO INT c&2 FHILLjIPS. 

CINCINNATI : 

HITCHCOCK & WALDEN. 

l878. 




^;$ 



Copyright 1878, by 

NELSON & PHILLIPS, 

New York. 



DEDICATORY. 



TO HARRIET ZBI3STJSTEI"5r, 

In Maidenhood my Mate, 
In Womanhood my WIFE, 
In Gentleness my Joy, 
In Counsel my Guide, 
In Industry my Thrift, 
In Trouble my Cheer, 
In Ministry my Help, 
In Love my Bliss, 

&\)i8 Uolume, 

Written during our pleasant pastorate at St. Paul's Church, in Lynn, 

IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED. 



PREFACE. 



TT is with the author of this volume about 
three o'clock in the afternoon of life's brief 
day. As he begins to look toward the sunset, 
and to think of that night in which no man 
can work, he realizes an ambition to be preach- 
ing the unsearchable riches of Christ after his 
sun shall have gone down. With Peter, he 
purposes, so long as he is in this tabernacle, to 
stir up his fellow-believers, putting them in re- 
membrance of the exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises. With Peter, he also feels that 
he must shortly put off this tabernacle ; and 
with him he now endeavors, by the use of the 
pen, " that ye may be able, after my decease, 
to have these things always in remembrance." 
This is the motive which prompts the publi- 
cation of the present volume of essays on the 
theme partially elaborated in " Love En- 
throned." The unexpected favor which the 
Christian Public has shown to that book 
evinces a wide-spread interest in the doctrine 
and experience of evangelical perfection. This 
demands the discussion of other questions 
intimately related to the subject of that vol- 



6 Preface. 

ume, but not extendedly' treated therein. A 
glance at the table of contents will show the 
reader the breadth of this range of topics. After 
receiving assurances from hundreds at home 
and in foreign lands, especially from Protestant 
missionaries of various denominations, that 
the writer's published testimonies to the power 
of Christ to save unto the uttermost have 
been blessed of the Holy Spirit to the strength- 
ening of their faith and the uplifting of their 
spiritual life, it would be not only an act of 
disloyalty to the law of duty, but a painful dep- 
rivation of privilege, should he be constrained 
by a false modesty to forbear standing any 
longer as a witness, and testifying to the 
wonders of redeeming love more and more 
lully unfolded in his experience during the 
seven past years. 

"With age Thou growest more divine, 

More glorious than before ; 
I fear thee with a deeper fear, 

Because I love thee more. 

" Thou broadenest out with every year, 

Each breadth of life to meet ; 
I scarce can think thou art the same, 

Thou art so much more sweet." 

Hence some of these essays are classified as 
experimental, though a few in this class border 
on the doctrinal. 

The eighteenth essay is the substance of a 



Preface. 7 

sermon preached, in 1877, at Round Lake, 
N. Y.; Orchard Beach, Me.; Hamilton, Mass.; 
Chester Heights, Pa. ; Mansfield and Lake Side, 
Ohio. Many persons who listened to this ser- 
mon, and others interested in the theme, have 
requested copies when it should be published. 
We would say to these Christian friends that 
this is probably the only form in which the 
author will commit it to the press. The 
eleventh essay, " Let Go and Trust," pub- 
lished as a tract by Dr. Cullis, Willard Tract 
Depository, has enabled many seekers after 
purity of heart to see the simplicity of conse- 
cration and of faith, and to enter into the 
rest of a full trust in Christ. The twelfth, 
" The Executive of the Godhead," is designed 
to recall the Church to the primitive doctrine 
of the distinctive work of the Holy Spirit in 
advanced Christian experience. It is the 
prayer of the author that this essay may incite 
many of his ministerial brethren especially to 
a thorough study of the proofs of the Person- 
ality and Offices of the Spirit, and to that 
simple, earnest, and incisive style of preach- 
ing which he only can inspire. 

The Tense-Readings of the Greek Testa- 
ment, in chapter iv, are an attempt to introduce 
English readers to the doctrinal results of the 
minute study of that wonderful language which 
God selected as the golden pitcher in which 



8 Preface. 

the water of life should be borne to the thirsty 
millions of the human family. 

The writer hopes that the grammatical 
proof that the conditions of eternal life are 
continuous through this life, and that entire 
sanctification is a momentary act, will con- 
tribute to banish those seductive errors indus- 
triously propagated by certain popular lay 
evangelists, (i,) that the first act of faith gives 
the person an inalienable and eternal standing 
in Christ, and (2,) that sanctification must be 
imperfect so long as we live in the body, and 
that Death is a conqueror of sin mightier than 
the Son of God. Those who plead for a 
gradual death of sin in the believer without 
any special exercise of faith, and without any 
crisis in Christian experience, called by the 
Wesleys " the second blessing," may be en- 
couraged by this chapter to expect entire 
sanctification " now, without doing or suffer- 
ing any thing more/ 

Daniel Steele. 

Lynn, March 12, 1878. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 

Chapter Page 

I. The Sons of God— Rank in the Scale of 

Being n 

II. The Three Perfections 27 

III. The Probation for Holiness 36 

IV. Sins, Infirmities, and the Atonement 44 

V. The Tense Readings of the Greek New 

Testament 53 

VI. The Obedience of Faith 91 

VII. Seeking and Not Finding 99 

VIII. A Business Man Answered 108 

IX. Repression not Sanctification 113 

X. Sanctification and Ethics 122 

XL Let Go and Trust 135 

XII. The Executive of the Godhead 142 

XIII. The Assurance of Purity 150 

XIV. Apollos — The Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 159 
XV. Jason and the Sirens — Victory in Tempta- 
tion 169 

XVI. Profession and Confession 175 

XVII. Christ our Sentinel 182 

XVIII. How the Guidance of the Spirit may be 

Discriminated 197 



io Contents. 



PART II. 

EXPERIMENTAL ESSAYS. 
Chapteb Page 

I. In the Heavenlies 229 

II. Rights in Christ 238 

III. Five Years with the Indwelling Christ 249 

IV. Freedom 262 

V. The Sixth Mile-Stone 280 

VI. Seten Sabbatic Years 289 



[. SEi] 



V 



MILE-STONE PAPERS 



PART I. 

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE SONS OF GOD— RANK IN THE SCALE OF 
BEING. 

IV /TAN'S rank among the creatures of God 
is a theme of more than speculative 
interest. It has a practical value ; for the 
revelation of man's greatness, as an exiled 
prince soon to be crowned, is a strong mo- 
tive to a life of moral purity. Professor 
Dana, of Yale College, raises the question 
whether some new and more noble being will 
not yet be created, and outrank man, as man 
now outranks the brute. Professor Agassiz 
partly answers this question from a scientific 
point of view, by observing that the spinal 
column of the first vertebrates, the fishes and 
serpents, is horizontal ; that in the next higher 
organizations it stands in an oblique position ; 
while in man, the perfection of the animal cre- 
ation, the spinal column is perpendicular. 
Hugh Miller, the eminent Scotch geologist, 



12 Mile-Stone Papers. 

asserts that man is the highest order of being 
which will ever stand on the earth ; that he 
crowns the long series of animal creations 
whose fossils are imbedded in the successive 
geological strata as we ascend from the fire- 
rocks to the alluvium on which we dwell. The 
reason for this conclusion is worthy the head 
and heart of the great Christian scientist. 
Man is the most noble order which will ever 
walk the earth, not only because the scepter of 
dominion was placed in his hand in Eden, but 
chiefly because his Almighty Creator has taken 
his nature upon himself in the incarnation of 
his Son. This stamps our race as the most 
glorious and exalted order, never to take a 
second rank by the creation of a superior, 
though the earth should roll through its orbit 
for millions of years to come ; since we cannot 
for a moment suppose that God would out- 
rank his Son, the man Christ Jesus, by calling 
into being one more excellent. It is no con- 
tradiction to this splendid generalization of the 
devout geologist to say that a new race has 
already made its appearance on earth, as much 
above the sons of Adam as these are above the 
ape and gorilla. These are the sons of God. 
Their origin and peculiar qualities, separating 
them from natural men by a gulf impassable, 
except with the aid of Omnipotence, constitutes 
the theme of the present chapter. 



The Sons of God. 13 

When sin had discrowned Adam and his 
sons it was determined in the Council of the 
Trinity that a new and superior order should 
be constructed out of the ruined race. A 
second Adam appears on earth as the first 
term of the glorious series, the new founder 
of the new order. He is the norm or model 
by which the new creation will proceed. All 
those sons of fallen Adam who by faith yield 
to the transfiguring power assume the es- 
sential attributes of the second Adam, the 
Lord from heaven. To adopt the phrase of 
modern philosophy, a new race is to be evolved. 
In all evolution there must first be involu- 
tion. You must put into the first term all 
that you take out. Jesus Christ is the first 
term. "And it pleased the Father that in him 
should all fullness dwell." " For in him dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." There 
is one word in the Greek Testament that 
exactly describes this relation of Jesus to the 
development of the sons of God. The term 
apxTyog is unfortunately translated by three 
different English words in the only four pas- 
sages in which it occurs. It is compounded 
of two Greek words, signifying, beginning and 
leading. The best Saxon rendering is file- 
leader. Thus declares Peter in his crimina- 
tion of the Jews : "And killed the file-leader 
of life, whom God hath raised from the dead." 



14 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Acts iii, 15. Again, before the Sanhedrin 
he utters these sublime words : " Him hath 
God exalted with (or at) his right hand to be 
a file-leader and a Saviour, for to give repent- 
ance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Acts 
v, 31. The office of Christ as the beginner of 
a glorious series is strikingly set forth in Heb. 
ii, 10 : " For it became Him for whom are all 
things, and by whom are all things, in bring- 
ing many sons unto glory, to make the file- 
leader of their salvation perfect through suf- 
ferings." Here we see, not with the eye of a 
poet's fancy, but with the anointed vision of 
inspiration, Jesus Christ marching at the head 
of a long column, " many sons," leading them 
into the wide open portals of heaven, till they 
stand at last in the blaze of its innermost 
glory, a circle around the throne upon which 
he sits down. Again, in Heb. xii, 2, we have 
this fact as the ground of an earnest exhorta- 
tion to Christian fidelity: " Looking unto 
Jesus, the file-leader and finisher of our faith; 
who, for the joy that was set before him en- 
dured the cross, despising the shame, and is 
set down at the right hand of the throne of 
God." .We have in these four passages the 
divine conception of our adorable Saviour as 
the head of the new order, the sons of God, 
evolving these from the sons of fallen Adam. 
" To as many as received him," says the 



The Sons of God. 15 

evangelist, " gave he privilege to become the 
sons of God." 

Between these two orders there is a gulf too 
deep and too wide to be bridged by any 
creature. There is a chasm between the 
lowest son of God and the highest son of 
Adam greater than there is between the 
lowest man and the highest brute. Let us 
endeavor to gain some conception of the 
broadness of this chasm. First, sonship ex- 
presses life. The sons of God have spiritual 
life ; the sons of Adam are spiritually dead. 
How broad the chasm between life and death ! 
Who can build a suspension bridge across this 
gulf? All the atheistic philosophers stand 
confounded before this question. Mechanical 
and chemical forces, under the most skillful 
co-ordination of human science, utterly fail to 
transmute non-living matter into a living or- 
ganism. This is the sole prerogative of the 
omnipotent Creator. But the production of 
animal life is a work far inferior to the quick- 
ening of a dead soul. How broad and deep 
and dark the abyss between a dead sinner and a 
child of God born of the Spirit ! There are no 
words in our language and no contrasts in our 
thought by which to express this difference. 
The zenith is not more remote from the nadir 
than life is from death. Only God can span 
this chasm, and bring a soul from the grave of 



1 6 Mile-Stone Papers. 

sin to the shores of life. " But," says one, 
"there is no such contrast between the so- 
called regenerate and unregenerate man." 
Their outward manifestations may not greatly 
differ. Both wear clothes, eat food, earn 
bread by toil, suffer in sickness, are over- 
whelmed in the same calamities, and both are 
under the sentence, " To dust shalt thou re- 
turn." The difference is not external, but in- 
ternal. The one feels the heart-throb of a 
new life ; the other lies pulseless in the sepul- 
cher of spiritual death. The one is God-cen- 
tered, gravitating upward, drawn by the mag- 
netism of love ; the other is self-centered, 
moving downward with the accelerating veloc- 
ity of depravity. The one throbs through all 
the mystery of his being with the pulses of a 
divine life ; the other is insensible to those 
spiritual truths which thrill the former with 
rapture unutterable. Though both obey the 
decalogue and minister their charities to the 
needy, the one acts with a single eye to the 
glory of God ; the other is actuated by a highly 
refined selfishness. The obedience of the one 
is freedom ; of the other, servility. 

Secondly. Sonship implies likeness. The 
sons of depraved Adam reflect his marred 
image. The sons of God, in their measure, 
are the brightness of his glory. They are in 
a degree, what their glorious File-leader is 



The Sons of God. IJ 

perfectly, the express image of the Father's 
person. The difference is radical, world-wide, 
and heaven-high. Peter, in portraying the 
sons of God, astonishes us with the following: 
" Whereby are given unto us exceeding great 
and precious promises, that by these ye might 
be partakers of the divine nature." To be 
partaker of one's nature is to have not its 
identity, but its characteristics. God is love. 
This is the essential and distinctive attribute 
of the sons of God. This is the principle of 
their life. The first pulsation of the new-born 
soul is love to God, the Father ; love to Christ, 
the Redeemer ; love to the brethren, and love 
to all mankind. " Hope maketh not ashamed," 
because it has a realized basis in present ex- 
perience, " the love of God shed abroad in our 
hearts " — deluging the believing soul—" by 
the Holy Ghost." The surprising message 
that God loves me awakens responsive love in 
my heart toward him and all the objects of 
his love. This is the decisive test: " He who 
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither 
is he that loveth not his brother." John lays 
bare the very foundations of Christian charac- 
ter when he says : " For this is the message 
that ye heard from the beginning, that ye 
should love one another." That we may know 
that he is describing the gulf between natural 
and spiritual men, the sons of Adam and the 



1 8 Mile-Stone Papers. 

sons of God, he goes on to say : " Not as Cain, 
who was of that wicked one," of the order of 
fallen humanity, and " slew his brother." " We 
know that we have passed from death unto life 
because we love the brethren ; but he that 
loveth not his brother abideth in death." To 
save transcribing the entire epistle, and to 
preclude all controversy on this point, we 
adduce John's emphatic statement of the es- 
sential distinction between the sons of Adam 
and the sons of God ; " He that committeth 
sin is of the devil ; for the devil sinneth from 
the beginning." 

Holiness, inward and outward, is the second 
quality which differences these two orders. 
Holiness is the all-comprehending moral at- 
tribute of God. How reasonable that his sons 
should wear this robe of stainless white ! Sin 
is not essential to sonship. It has no place 
in the File-leader, the model of the series. 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all 
spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ ; 
according as he hath chosen us [believers] in 
him before the foundation of the world, that 
we should be holy and without blame before 
him in love." The doctrine of predestination 
always has reference to holiness. God, by an 
immutable decree, has made entire sanctifica- 
tion the goal attainable by all believers ; from 



The Sons of God. 19 

eternity he has determined that those who, by 
a free compliance with the conditions, are 
adopted into his family, " should be conformed 
to the image of his Son," not only in the dis- 
tant future, but now, in the present life. " As 
I am, so are ye in this world." The broad line 
of demarkation between the children of God 
and the children of the devil lies in this one 
word, sin. " Whosoever has been born of God 
[and so continues] is not sinning, because His 
seed, the new principle of love, remaineth in 
him, and he is not able to be sinning, [as a 
habit,] because he has been born of God" [and 
so remains.] The significance of the Greek 
tenses is shown in the parenthetic words, the 
perfect tense denoting an act whose effect re- 
mains to the present time, and the present 
tense indicating an habitual or oft-recurring 
act. A God-born soul is not in a sinning 
state, because he has admitted a new and 
dominant motive, antagonistic to sin, to take 
up its permanent abode behind his will. Its 
attitude cannot be hostile to the law so long 
as it is swayed by love to the lawgiver. He 
may in an unwary moment be surprised by 
some single act of sin, for which there is a 
merciful resort to the High-priest above. " If 
any man sin [aorist tense denoting a single 
act] we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the just." A perfectly holy soul, 



20 Mile-Stone Papers. 

whether an angel in his first estate, or Adam 
in Eden, or a blood-washed believer, may fall 
away from his order by a decisive and per- 
manent wrong choice, a choice which is the 
inexplicable mystery discussed for ages, the 
origin of sin. But John stoutly affirms that 
permanent sonship and continual sinning are 
contradictions which cannot be combined in 
one character. A man cannot be sober and 
drunken, honest and thieving, chaste and 
licentious, at the same time. But the tem- 
perate man may become an inebriate and die 
in the gutter ; and the pure man become a 
rake and be slain in a brothel. How this 
stupendous perversion of the gospel of purity, 
that the sons of God are constantly sinning, 
became so widespread, can be explained only 
on the theoiy that Satan himself has turned 
Bible expositor, teaching that "no man since 
the fall of Adam, even by the aid of divine 
grace, can perfectly keep God's law, but daily 
breaks it in thought, word, and deed." This 
fallacy of the Westminster Catechism still im- 
poses upon intelligent minds, because they 
fail to see that the Adamic law has been re- 
placed by the evangelical requirement of love as 
the fulfilling of the law. There is no sin where 
perfect love reigns. This may consist with 
innumerable defects, infirmities, and theoret- 
ical and practical errors. To a superficial ob- 



The Sons of God. 21 

server these may look like sins, but a deeper 
inspection shows that they lack the essential ■ 
characteristic, namely, the voluntary element. 
In ethics it is an axiomatic truth that volition 
is an attribute of sin as an act, or sin which en- 
tails guilt. Yet even involuntary deviations 
from rectitude need the atonement.* 

There are other striking points of resem- 
blance between the sons of God and their 
great Exemplar and Model. Jesus was be- 
gotten of the Holy Ghost ; the sons of God are 
born of the Spirit. Jesus was circumcised the 
eighth day ; the real, spiritual seed of Abraham 
have their circumcision not in the flesh, but in 
the spirit, being cleansed from all filthiness of 
the flesh and of the spirit. Jesus, after a period 
of religious development, was baptized with 
the Holy Spirit; so are all those children of 
God who tarry in Jerusalem with persevering 
faith. Jesus had the certificate of his sonship 
in the repeated utterance of his Father, " Thou 
art my well-beloved Son ; " so does the child 
of God hear the attestation of his divine 
adoption prompting the joyful shout, Abba, 
Father : — 

1 ' The Spirit answers to the blood, 
And tells me I am born of God." 

Jesus was tempted in all points ; so are we. 
He was victorious : " Be of good cheer ; I have 

* See Chapter IV. 



22 Mile-Stone Papers. 

overcome the world ; " so are we victors : 
-" This is the victory that overcometh the world, 
even our faith." Jesus was crucified ; so are all 
those sons of God who count not the self-life 
dear unto them. " I have been crucified with 
Christ [and so remain ;] it is no longer I that 
live, but Christ that liveth in me." * The 
primal son of God was buried. Thus was his 
death solemnly certified. So does the child of 
God die unto sin, and the water poured in holy 
baptism, symbolizing the out-poured Spirit, 
seals and ratifies his death unto sin. Jesus 
arose from the dead ; the sons of God arise to 
newness of life by a spiritual resurrection, soon 
to be followed by a quickening of their mortal 
bodies because the Spirit has dwelt within 
them, f Jesus ascended; so shall we be 
caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Our 
File-leader has been glorified ; so shall we, who 
have borne the image of the earthly, bear the 
image of the heavenly. Our elder Brother 
has sat down on his Father's throne as a fore- 
gleam of our wonderful enthronement as 
kings and priests : " Unto him that over- 
cometh will I give to sit with me in my 
throne." Once more, Jesus Christ will judge 
the universe, and at his side will sit his breth- 
ren as associate judges : " Know ye not that 
we shall judge angels ? " 

* Alford's Version. f Rom. viii, 14, margin. 



The Sons of God. 23 

These points of similarity of the Son of God 
to his brethren the sons of God are strikingly 
summarized in 

The Seven " Togethers " 

in the Scripture, which show the wondrous 
identification of the Lord Jesus Christ with 
believers, in all the experiences of the spiritu- 
al life and its rewards. They indicate the be- 
nevolent purpose of God in our redemption, 
and his plan in effecting that purpose. It is 
affirmed of us by the Spirit, in the word, that 
we are — 

1. Crucified together with Christ, (Gal. ii, 20.) 

2. Quickened together 'with Christ, (Col. ii, 13.) 

3. Raised together with Christ, (Eph. ii, 6.) 

4. Seated together with Christ in heavenly 
places, (Eph. ii, 6.) 

5. Sufferers together with Christ, (Rom. viii, 17.) 

6. Heirs together with Christ, (Rom. viii, 17.) 
And that we are to be — 

7. Glorified together with Christ, (Rom. viii, 
1 7-) 

Together with the Lord — 

What bursts of light I see ! 
Light, life, and joy are in that word ; 

" As He is, so are we." 

Together with the Lord — 

Nor curse, nor death to see ; 
But "seated" — O, that glorious word! — 

Where " heavenly places" be. Eph. ii, 6. 



24 Mile-Stone Papers. 

And " heirs " we are with him Rom. viii, 17. 

Of God — O, wondrous love ! 
" Joint heirs with Christ," in bliss supreme 

To reign with him above. 

And with Him "glorified'* Rom. viii, 17. 

We shall forever be, 
One with the Head, in whom we died, 

We all his love shall see. 

Ah ! heavenly portion this ! 

With sins and sufferings o'er, Rom. viii, 18. 
To know and share his wondrous bliss, 

As none e'er knew before. 

Meanwhile this glorious state, 

It forms our mind within, 
To know the self that's dead — its hate — 

To purify from sin. 

In newness, now, of life, 

We would our powers employ ; 
Save sin, to know no other strife ; 

Save Christ, no other joy. 

This discussion throws intense light on a 
subject much misunderstood — the Fatherhood 
of God. He is the Creator of all men, but the 
Father only of those who receive his Son and 
believe on his name.. This declaration cuts off 
at a stroke that soft and shallow sentimental- 
ism which applies the Fatherhood of God to 
men steeped in sin and defiant in rebellion, 
and rears upon this sandy foundation the hope 
of universal salvation. God nowhere styles 
himself the Father of the unregenerate, but 
only of penitent believers in his Son Jesus 



The Sons of God. 25 

Christ. If any one is expecting to be saved by 
the divine Fatherhood, let him make his sal- 
vation sure by becoming a son by the Spirit of 
adoption, crying in the depths of his soul, 
"Abba, Father." 

This discussion also unfolds the real brother- 
hood of man. All the descendants of Adam 
should constitute a sacred and inviolable fra- 
ternity. But, alas ! Adamic lineage is a feeble 
barrier against gigantic wrongs. For six 
thousand years the sons of Adam have warred, 
slaughtered, pillaged, robbed, and enslaved 
their brethren. This bond is too weak to 
restrain from the most flagrant violations of 
the law of love. But the Son of God came to 
found a better fraternity, a real brotherhood. 
" Go tell my brethren," said the risen Jesus. 
Strong indeed is that tie of brotherhood which 
passes from heart to heart — through the heart 
of the God-man. He who truly loves God 
loves every one that is begotten of him. Love 
can work no ill to our brother. Love divine 
infused into human souls surpasses all the 
bonds of nature. This explains the seemingly 
harsh declaration of Jesus, in which he appears 
to reveal a heart denuded of human affec- 
tions: " He that doeth the will of my Father 
in heaven, the same is my mother and sister 
and brother." Nearer to Jesus are the Hotten- 
tot and Kamschatkan who believe in him than 



26 Mile-Stone Papers. 

were his brothers, James and Joses, before 
they had such evangelical faith. Ye who are 
endeavoring to fortify yourselves against the 
ills of life by membership in human fraterni- 
ties which may stand up for you while living, 
cast a sprig of evergreen into your grave, and 
afford a pittance to your widow, remember 
that there is a nobler fraternity of the sons of 
God, that, after bearing your body with devout 
hands to the tomb, and hanging the lamp of 
the resurrection thereon, will accompany your 
soul into the unseen holy beyond, and afford 
a genial and delightful companionship through 
the ceaseless ages of eternity. Unite your 
fortunes with this fraternity while it is called 
to-day. Regeneration is initiation. " For He 
that sanctineth and they who are sanctified 
are all of one ; for which cause He is not 
ashamed to call them brethren." 



The Three Perfections, 2J 



CHAPTER II. 

THE THREE PERFECTIONS. 

A SIDE from the absolute perfection of God, 
the term perfection, as used in the Holy 
Scriptures, in its application to human beings, 
has three distinct meanings. Much of the dif- 
ficulty in understanding the doctrine of Chris- 
tian perfection arises from a confusion of these 
three significations. 

i. The perfection of the paradise of Eden. 
Adam came forth from the hand of the Creator 
complete in his physical organism, in his men- 
tal structure, in the enthronement of his moral 
sense, in the harmony and balance of all his 
faculties. His appetites, in perfect subjection 
to a will holy in all its moral choices, minis- 
tered to his existence as a person and a race in 
a manner wholly consistent with the utmost 
purity. His passions afforded motive power 
to his spiritual aspirations, as the steady trade- 
winds waft the well-freighted argosy to its des- 
tined port. He was as perfect as his all-wise 
Creator could make him. His lack of experi- 
ence, in the very nature of the case of a being 
just, called from nothingness, must be supplied 



28 Mile-Stone Papers. 

by himself, and not by his Maker. There was 
no original proclivity to sin, no secret spring 
coiled up in his nature moving him to step 
over the fiery boundary between right and 
wrong, and no fatal debility of his moral nature 
which must inevitably break down under the 
pressure of temptation. We must, moreover, 
suppose that, as his affections were perfect, 
they were fixed upon God, their proper object, 
thus leaving the soul not in a state of equilib- 
rium between sin and holiness, but giving it a 
strong upward tendency. 

In what, then, consisted the probation of this 
perfect being? Is sin possible to the intelli- 
gence thus launched upon its orbit under the 
attraction of the central sun ? Aside from the 
agency of the Satanic tempter, it was possible 
for a perfect Adam, by reason of his very 
finiteness, walking forth amid infinitudes, to 
miss his way. The limitation of his knowledge 
made faith a necessity. But there was no in- 
herent defect, no downward inclination, no 
darkening of the moral perceptions by sin, and 
no infirmity of the will in the direction of 
righteousness. He was adapted to the law of 
perfect obedience. This law he might have 
perfectly fulfilled. This is Adamic perfection. 
Since sin has marred the image of God in man, 
and disturbed, in their federal head and repre- 
sentative, the moral balance of each individual 



The Three Perfections. 29 

of the race, the man Jesus Christ only excepted, 
this perfection has disappeared with the para- 
dise in which it was found. " I have seen the 
end of all [legal] perfection, [for] thy law is 
exceeding broad." Says Job : " If I say I 
am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse." 
This perfection is no longer required as the 
ground of salvation. It is now a myth when- 
ever professed, and always will be, so long 
as men are begotten in the image of their 
father. " Who can bring a clean thing out of 
an unclean?" 

2. The perfection of the paradise above. 
We look back with regret upon a perfection 
irrecoverably lost by reason of the flaming 
sword of the cherubim guarding the gate of a 
lost Eden ; yet we look forward with hope 
toward another perfection enthroned above the 
cherubim, in the glorified state after the resur- 
rection of the righteous dead. No candid 
reader, with ordinary acumen, can read the 
third chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Philip- 
pians and fail to discover that this is the goal 
on which this spiritual athlete has his eye in- 
tently fixed. " I count all things but loss, if by 
any means I might attain unto the resurrection 
of the dead. Not as though I had already at- 
tained, either were already perfect," rereXeLG)fiac, 
" crowned," says Bengel, " with the garland of 
victory, his course completed and perfection 



30 Mile-Stone Papers. 

absolutely reached." For this St. Paul groaned, 
and for this manifestation of the sons of God 
the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth. 
Toward this all our holiest aspirations rise. 
" Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we 
know, that when he shall appear, we shall be 
like him ; for we shall see him as he is." Then 
will the brightest ideals of perfection which 
our imaginations are capable of forming be 
fully realized. For we can imagine nothing 
more excellent than the Son of Man in his 
glory, wearing the diadem of universal domin- 
ion, and adored by all the unfallen and all the 
redeemed intelligences, rank above rank, who 
veil their faces before his throne. We speak 
now of perfection in kind. The degree of our 
love will be forever increasing, as the beauties 
of the God-man eternally unfold before our 
enraptured vision. Mathematicians demon- 
strate that a curve may be drawn of such a 
nature that a straight line, lying in the same 
plane, may forever approach and never touch 
it. This line is called an asymptote. In this 
ever-increasing love the glorified saints will be 
spiritual asymptotes to the Son of God. Prog- 
ress is an attribute of mind. At no point in 
the endless future will God bandage the loving 
soul, to check its growth forever afterward like 
a Chinese foot. This distinction between per- 



The Three Perfections. 31 

fection of kind and of degree is not difficult to 
comprehend, yet many intelligent people are 
perpetually confounding them. 

3. The perfection of the paradise of love. 
Perfect love constitutes evangelical perfection, 
the sum of all duties, the bond which binds all 
the virtues into unity. As we stand midway 
between the perfect estate of paradise lost and 
of paradise regained, regretting the one and 
aspiring to the other, but excluded so long as 
we are in the flesh, our gracious God, through 
the mediation of Christ, commissions the Holy 
Ghost to come down and open the gates of a 
new paradise of love made perfect, love casting 
out all fear, love fully shed abroad in our hearts. 
Love is the fulfilling of the law. To fulfill is 
perfectly to keep, not the old Adamic law, but 
the law of the new Adam, the Lord from 
heaven. " Fulfill ye the law of Christ, the royal 
law of liberty." This law is graciously adapted 
to our diminished moral capacity, dwarfed and 
crippled by original and actual sin. All there 
is left of us after sin has spread its blight may 
be filled with the fullness of God. Every fac- 
ulty may be energized, every capacity be filled, 
and every particle and fiber of the being be 
pervaded with the love of Christ, so that the 
totality of our nature may be subsidized in the 
delightful employment of love, attesting itself 
by obedience, rejoicing evermore, praying 



32 Mile-Stone Papers. 

without ceasing, and in eveiy thing giving 
thanks. Says Wesley, " I know of no other 
Christian perfection." The hypercritical may 
criticise the term, and say that perfection can- 
not be predicated of any thing human, and the 
advocates of entire sanctification may unwisely 
substitute other terms supposed to be less of- 
fensive, such as " the higher life," " the rest of 
faith," and " full trust," and other words which 
man's wisdom teacheth, but it will be found 
that they all fail to convey the exact and defi- 
nite idea of the word " perfection" which the 
Holy Ghost teacheth. This signifies not only 
our justification — sometimes called the imputa- 
tion of Christ's righteousness, though improp- 
erly — but our inherent completeness in Christ, 
who is our sanctification as well as our right- 
eousness or justification. The term perfection 
is the best word in the English language for 
expressing that state of spiritual wholeness 
into which the soul has entered, when the last 
inward foe is conquered, and the last distract- 
ing force is harmonized with the mighty love 
of Christ, and every crevice of the nature is 
filled with love, and every energy is employed 
in the delightful service of the adorable Sav- 
iour, and the soul is as "dead indeed unto sin " 
as the occupants of the Stone Chapel grave- 
yard are to the tide of Boston business and 
pleasure which rolls along Tremont -street. 



The Three Perfections. 33 

However fractional the man may be in all 
other respects, he is in one sense an integer : 
love pervades the totality of his being. Early 
in divine revelation do we find Jehovah point- 
ing to this state, saying to Abraham, " Walk 
before me, and be thou perfect ;" and to Moses, 
" Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord." In 
many other places the same Hebrew word is 
used in describing character, but three times 
it is unfortunately translated by sincerely or in 
sincerity, twelve times by upright and uprightly, 
once by undejiled, as " Blessed are the undefiled 
[perfect] in the way," and once by sound. 
" Let my heart be sound [perfect] in thy stat- 
utes." Forty-five times the Israelites are com- 
manded to bring sacrifices without blemish; 
and every time the word should have been 
translated perfect, God thus teaching by im- 
pressive symbols that the heart of the offerer 
must be perfect before God. Leviticus is the 
book of all the Old Testament wherein is 
typically taught the need of inward cleansing, 
whose end is holiness, whose tabernacle is holy, 
whose vessels are holy, whose offerings are most 
holy, whose priests are holy, and their gar- 
ments are holy, and whose people are holy, 
because their God is holy. Opening the New 
Testament, we find the Greek word teleios, per- 
fect, as descriptive of fitness for the kingdom 
of God, dropping from the lips of Christ and 



34 Mile-Stone Papers. 

from the pen of St. Paul seventeen times, while 
the cognate noun perfection is twice used, and 
the verb to perfect fourteen times. This exam- 
ination shows that the Spirit of inspiration had 
a deep design, persistently followed from the 
book of Genesis to the Epistles of John. That 
design is to set forth the holiness of the serv- 
ice demanded of us, and the perfectibility of the 
Christian under the dispensation of the Spirit. 
For this perfection is not on a level with man's 
natural powers, but is the work of the Sancti- 
fier through the mediation and blood of Jesus 
Christ, who " by one offering hath perfected 
forever them that are sanctified." By one of- 
fering he has procured the Sanctifier, who, so 
long as the world shall stand, is able by his 
office of cleansing to perfect believers, and pre- 
sent them complete in Christ Jesus. 

It is easy now to see why perfection is both 
affirmed and denied in the Scriptures, with 
respect to the same individuals. God styles 
Job perfect, while Job himself repudiates that 
adjective. Compare chapter i, i, with ix, 20. 
Thus David sees the " end of all perfection," 
and soon after calls on all men to "mark the 
perfect man," and note his peaceful death : 
Psa. cxix, 96; xxxvii, 37. St. Paul seems to 
blow hot and cold with the same breath, when 
he denies that he is perfect, and then assumes 
that he is, Phil, iii, 12-15 ; and St. James con- 



The Three Perfections. 35 

tradicts himself in the same way in chapter 
iii, 2. The explanation is easy. Legal perfec- 
tion is disclaimed, while evangelical perfection 
is claimed. In other words, perfect love- 
service can be rendered : while perfect law- 
service is beyond the power of moral cripples 
to render. 



36 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROBATION FOR HOLINESS. 

HHHE advocates of entire sanctification, with 
Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson at their head, 
affirm that this blessing " is as distinctly marked 
and as graciously promised in the holy Script- 
ures as justification, regeneration, adoption, 
and the witness of the Spirit."* Nevertheless, 
many honest inquirers are perplexed with in- 
tellectual and scriptural difficulties on this very 
point of the distinctness of this work; and they 
are led to ask why God has not set this great 
blessing above the mists of doubt and the 
possibility of controversy. If this glorious 
privilege is to the other benefits of the atone- 
ment as Mt. Blanc is to the lesser mountains 
of Europe, why does it not tower up so man- 
ifestly before all eyes as to render misconcep- 
tion and unbelief impossible? Infidels make 
a similar demand upon Christianity, that she 
shall stand forth so radiant with divinity that 
the dullest eye may instantly, without any ex- 
amination, discover the unmistakable seal of 
heaven on her brow. They say that if a man 
really wished his absent servant to do a piece 

* Watson's " Institutes," Vol. IV., page 450. 



The Probation for Holiness. 37 

of work, he would make his meaning so plain, 
and his signature so characteristic, that the 
servant could have no excuse for any mistakes. 
Bishop Butler well replies that, if the Master's 
intent is to secure the mere doing of the work, 
he would write thus plainly, but if he wished 
to test the fidelity of the servant, he might pur- 
posely leave some obscurities, which could be 
made plain only by patiently studying the 
letter* 

Now, since God's message to man has diffi- 
culties in it, and since Christianity descends from 
the skies with her seal partially hidden, and 
with the purpose of disclosing it only to candid 
and earnest seekers, skeptics reject her claims. 
We reply to them : God certainly wishes his 
Gospel to be received, but in such a manner as 
to confer the highest benefit on man, and to re^ 
fleet the highest glory on his Son. This will 
not be realized by a mere passive reception of 
clearly demonstrated truth, but by stimulating 
man's highest powers of research to the most 
intense activity and the most eager desire. 

It is the divine order that truth of every 
kind should fully reveal itself only to hungry 
souls. The long research and the hot pursuit 
whet the appetite, and prepare the discoverer 
for a proper appreciation of the treasure which 
he has found. The more valuable the truth, 

* Butler's " Analogy," Part II, Chap. VI. 



38 Mile-Stone Papers. 

the higher the barriers which hedge it in and 
appall all timid seekers, leaving the toilsome 
search to those dauntless souls whose un- 
conquerable persistence makes all opposition 
bow before them. 

The coming of the Comforter to the be- 
liever's heart, and his indwelling as the Sancti- 
fier, is a greater event, in its immediate prac- 
tical benefits, than the advent of the Messiah 
to the world. This John the Baptist saw as 
the culminating blessing of Christ's coming. 
" He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost." 
Jesus was ever pointing to that crowning gift. 
The disciples could not understand how Jesus 
could, through the Comforter, manifest him- 
self to them, and be invisible to the world. 
Their faith had a probation with respect to 
this great coming event. The trial of their 
faith continued through that ten days' prayer- 
meeting before Pentecost. This protracted 
test was necessary to enlarge their faith to its 
utmost capacity for the fullness of the Spirit. 
They endured the test, and received the great- 
est gift that the Father and the glorified Son 
could bestow. 

We meet with Christians who are unable to 
formulate the doctrine of entire sanctification. 
They are puzzled with the apparent contradic- 
tion of a work of the Spirit in regeneration, 
and the witness of the Spirit before the abid- 



The Probation for Holiness. 39 

ing Comforter is received. It seems to them 
as absurd as to talk of a carpenter's doing a 
work within the house before his entrance. 
But we have a precisely similar difficulty in 
formulating the doctrine of the Holy Ghost. 
How could he be in the patriarchal and Jewish 
Church, and the inspirer of all its piety, before 
he was sent down from on high at the Pente- 
cost? Multitudes who hand over this greater 
mystery from reason to faith are still tasking 
reason with the lesser mystery, and keeping 
themselves spiritual paupers in consequence. 
For no man ever yet received the Holy Ghost 
through a syllogism. He always enters in 
through the door of faith. 

It is a painful fact that many who profess 
faith in Jesus Christ, and evince a degree of 
spiritual life, are practically in the condition of 
the first twelve believers in Ephesus ; they 
have not in the depths of their own hearts "so 
much as heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost." They are living in the ante-pente- 
costal state, in the rudimentary dispensation 
of John. They do not know " the exceeding 
greatness of Christ's power to usward who be- 
lieve." The Credo, " I believe in the Holy 
Ghost," is on their lips, but it is as ineffectual 
for spiritual transfiguration as the Binomial 
Theorem. Their thirsty souls stand at the 
well of living water, and let down their buckets, 



40 Mile-Stone Papers. 

and draw them up empty, not because the 
well is dry, but because their rope is not long 
enough to reach the water. An orthodox creed 
lying dead in the intellect is like a dry bucket 
hanging midway down the well. Merely in- 
tellectual believers lack a vigorous, appropriat- 
ing faith. To develop this, difficulties are pur- 
posely set before their souls, to be mastered, 
and objections, seeming to tower to a mountain 
height, must be surmounted. The whole sub- 
ject of full salvation, as presented in the Script- 
ures, does not seem to them to stand forth 
distinct from justification and the new birth. 
The testimony of Paul, Peter and John is cir- 
cumlocutory, and not direct. They drape their 
testimony in mystical phrase, as " dead unto 
sin," " the life hid with Christ," " risen with 
Christ," "the sealing, the baptism, the unction 
of the Spirit." They pray for others to be 
sanctified wholly, but they do not squarely 
avow that they have themselves grasped this 
prize. Then, again, it seems to be impossible 
that a soul marred and dwarfed by sin should 
ever in any sense be perfect, in view of the un- 
abated requirements of the law of absolute 
holiness. 

The glaring defects of some professors of 
holiness complicate the objections. The atti- 
tude of many in the Christian Church and min- 
istry, their apathy, shyness, and manifest dis- 



The Probation for Holiness. 41 

trust of this experience, is a still greater lion 
in the pathway of holiness. The occasional 
fanaticisms which have sometimes broken out 
make the subject still more doubtful. In view 
of these facts the whole question looks mysti- 
fied, mixed, muddy, muddled and mischievous. 
The Little-Faiths and the Weak-Hearts, not 
perceiving that this condition of things con- 
stitutes the very discipline which they need, 
sit timorously down before these giants stand- 
ing across their path, as did the writer for 
twenty-five years, while the Faithfuls and the 
Great-Hearts, espying the glorious uplands of 
perfect rest, boldly encounter and rout these 
enemies, and enter in. They find that the very 
grapple with these grim specters constitutes 
the probation for holiness, and the discipline 
and upreaching of faith requisite for receiv- 
ing so great grace. Hence the whole subject 
of instantaneous sanctification through faith 
is left in just that half-revealed and half-con- 
cealed state best adapted to stimulate research, 
sharpen insight, enkindle desire, and afford to 
all persistent believers an arena for heroic 
struggle and glorious victory. This is an en- 
tirely different probation, and more severe 
than that which precedes pardon. An infant- 
ile faith may grasp justification, but only an 
adult faith can seize the prize of entire sanctifi- 
cation. Instead of repining at these tests, we 



42 Mile-Stone Papers. 

are to count it all joy when we fall into mani- 
fold temptations, or puttings to the proof, 
since it is for the trial of our faith. For since 
the blessing sought is entire and not partial 
sanctification, there must be not an imperfect 
but a perfect faith. The trials which make 
faith perfect should, therefore, be joyfully re- 
ceived. The case of the Syrophenician woman 
is an admirable illustration of the probation of 
faith. The boon desired — casting the demon 
out of her daughter — was incapable of degrees. 
The prayer could not be partly answered in 
accordance with a defective faith. The evil 
spirit must retain his full possession, or be cast 
out entirely. Jesus, seeing the mother's faith 
inadequate, gave it a schooling. He gave it a 
probation. The first request is met by a 
chilling silence. But faith, though repulsed, 
gathers strength, leaps the barrier, and is all 
the stronger for the effort. Jesus now sets a 
higher wall before her : " I am not sent but 
unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
She falters not for a moment, but falls on her 
knees and cries, " Lord help me ! " and over this 
wall her heaven-aided faith bears her. With a 
higher barricade Jesus now hedges himself in, 
more formidable than an iron picket fence 
bristling ten feet in height. " It is not meet to 
take the children's bread and cast it to the 
dogs," {puppies, Greek.) That fence will surely 



The Probation for Holiness. 43 

stop the impertinent Canaanite asking mercies 
uncovenanted. But look ! She vaults over 
this barrier at a single bound, clearing its top- 
most picket, on which she might have been im- 
paled. " Truth, Lord, but the dogs eat of the 
crumbs." Nobly has she stood her probation. 
She has developed a faith sufficient to drive 
out the biggest demon outside of Pandemo- 
nium. What could Jesus withhold from that 
faith? " Take the key to my omnipotence, 
and help yourself." Thus the expulsion of the 
Old Man in the heart is a whole blessing and 
requires a whole faith. This, not being suf- 
ficient at justification, is put to school, is set 
at wrestling with difficulties and slaying Go- 
liaths in its way. When the last one is laid in 
the dust, God will deem us competent to guard 
the priceless pearl of perfect love. 

Moral. — 1. Look not at objections, but be- 
yond them. 

2. Surmounted difficulties are the stairway 
up to the Higher Life. 

3. How shall I get faith ? Exercise it. 

4. When am I prepared to believe fully? 
When you have fully yielded all to Christ. 



44 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SINS, INFIRMITIES, AND THE ATONEMENT. 

TN many minds the perfection of spiritual life 

required by the Gospel is eclipsed by con- 
founding infirmities and sins. What God has, 
in his word and in the human conscience, put 
asunder, some people are perpetually joining 
together. Then they confidently assert that 
holiness of heart and life is a state too high for 
men dwelling in earthly tabernacles. 

Many times has this distinction between in- 
firmities and sins been pointed out by theolo- 
gians, but so blind or so willfully obstinate are 
multitudes that they fail to see the dividing 
line. We desire to disentangle these confused 
ideas, hoping that we may help some one to a 
solution of a difficulty in the way of his full 
salvation. 

I. Infirmities are failures to keep the law of 
perfect obedience given to Adam in Eden. This 
law no man on earth can keep, since sin has 
impaired the powers of universal humanity. 

Sins are offenses against the law of love, the 
law of Christ, which is thus epitomized by 
John, " And this is his commandment, that we 



Sins, Infirmities, and the Atonement. 45 

should believe on the name of his Son Jesus 
Christ, and love one another." 1 John iii, 23. 
Hence the Spirit convinces the world of sin, 
" because they believe not on me." The sum 
total of God's commandments to men with the 
New Testament in their hands is faith in 
Christ attested by its proper fruits, good works. 
However dwarfed and shattered by sin that 
poor drunkard is, so long as he is this side of 
the gates of hell he is under the dispensation 
of the Holy Spirit, who imparts to him the 
gracious ability to repent of sin, and to trust, 
love, and obey the Lord Jesus. His refusal is 
sin. So long as he has any capacity for love, 
however small, that capacity is called his whole 
heart. The law of love says to him in tones 
of authority, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart." Hence, every one is 
under obligation to be evangelically perfect. 
Refusal to love with the whole heart is the 
ground of condemnation, and not inevitable 
failures in keeping the law of Adamic perfec- 
tion. 

2. Infirmities are an involuntary outflow 
from our imperfect moral organization. Sin is 
always voluntary. " Ye will not come unto 
me that ye might have life." " Men love dark- 
ness rather than light." 

3. Infirmities have their ground in our phys- 
ical nature, and they are aggravated by intellect- 



46 Mile-Stone Papers. 

ual deficiencies. But sin roots itself in our 
moral nature, " springing either from the habit- 
ual corruption of our hearts, or from the un- 
resisting perversion of our tempers." 

4. Infirmities entail regret and humiliation. 
Sin always produces guilt. 

5. Infirmities in well-instructed souls do not 
interrupt communion with God. Sin cuts the 
telegraphic communication with heaven. The 
infirmities of unenlightened believers, being 
regarded as sins, may produce condemnation 
and sunder communion, by destroying confi- 
dence in God. Thousands are in this sad con- 
dition. 

6. Infirmities, hidden from ourselves, (Psa. 
xix, 12,) are covered by the blood of Christ 
without a definite act of faith, in the case of 
the soul vitally united with him. On the 
great day of atonement the errors of the indi- 
vidual Hebrew were put away through the 
blood of sprinkling, without offering a special 
victim for himself. Heb. ix, 7. Sins demand 
a special resort to the blood of sprinkling and 
an act of reliance on Christ. 

7. Infirmities are without remedy so long as 
we are in the body. Sins, by the keeping 
power of Christ, are avoidable through every 
hour of our regenerate life. Both of these 
truths are in Jude's ascription, "Now unto 
Him that is able to keep you from falling [into 



Sins, Infirmities, and the Atonement. 47 

sin, or, as the Vulgate reads, sine peccato, with- 
out sin,] and to present you faultless [without 
infirmity, not here, but] in the presence of his 
glory with exceeding joy," etc. Jude under- 
stood the distinction between faults, or infirmi- 
ties, and sins. In his scheme of Christian 
perfection faults are to disappear in the life to 
come, but we are to be saved from sins now. 

8. A thousand infirmities are consistent with 
perfect love, but not one sin. " Who can 
understand his errors ? Cleanse thou me from 
secret [unconscious] faults. Keep back thy 
servant, also, from presumptuous [willful, high- 
handed] sins ; let them not have dominion 
over me ; then shall I be upright, [Hebrew, 
perfect,'] and I shall be innocent from the great 
transgression." Here the psalmist expects to 
fall into errors and unconscious faults, and he 
prays to be cleansed from them, but he prays 
to be kept from known and voluntary sins. 

Hence it is evident that sins are incompat- 
ible with David's idea of perfection ; and that 
unnoticed and involuntary errors or faults, are 
not. This distinction is strongly confirmed by 
an inquiry into the facts of David's life, and 
God's verdict respecting his character. In 
1 Kings xv, 5 we are assured that he " did 
that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, 
and turned not aside from any thing that He 
commanded him, all the days of his life, save 



48 Mile-Stone Papers. 

only in the matter of Uriah, the Hittite." 
From all " presumptuous sins," save one, David 
was kept. Notwithstanding his infirmities, he 
did that which was right in the eyes of the 
Lord, with one sad and solitary exception. 

But, when God sums up the life and char- 
acter of King Asa, he makes no exception to 
his perfectness, declaring that " the heart of 
Asa was perfect all his days." 2 Chron. xv, 17. 
Yet we find that he failed to perfect his reform 
by taking away all the high places of idolatrous 
worship ; that he was angry with Hanani, who 
rebuked him for his lack of trust in God against 
Baasha, King of Israel, and that he put him in 
prison, and oppressed some of the people, who 
were, probably, regarded as factious and dis- 
loyal in their sympathy with the imprisoned 
prophet, whose rectitude of purpose Asa had 
entirely, yet innocently, misapprehended. In 
addition, the sacred historian has recorded an- 
other infirmity, common with some of the 
holiest men now on the earth, who employ 
physicians for bodily ailments, and doubt that 
the gift of healing is still available — " In his 
disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the 
physicians." 2 Chron. xvi, 10-12. Doubtless, 
many of his contemporaries saw great imper- 
fections in these outward acts, these mistaken 
judgments and severities in administration, but 
the Lord, who looks at the heart, chisels on 



Sins, Infirmities, and the Atonement. 49 

Asa's tombstone this enviable epitaph, " Per- 
fect all his days." We aspire to no better. Is 
it impossible for us to achieve under the Gos- 
pel what it was possible to accomplish under 
Judaism ? If so, what has Christ procured, 
and what has the Holy Spirit bestowed, which 
should make his dispensation more glorious? 

When we look into the Gospel we find Jesus 
Christ making the very distinction which we 
have made in this chapter. Of the traitor 
who willfully betrayed him, he said, " It had 
been good for that man if he bad not been 
born ; " but to the sleeping disciples in Geth- 
semane he hinted no destiny of remediless 
woe in these tender words, " The spirit indeed 
is willing, but the flesh is weak." Judas had 
sinned ; Peter, James, and John had been 
overcome by an infirmity. Paul makes the 
same distinction in these two precepts, " Them 
that sin, rebuke before all, that others may 
fear." 1 Tim. v, 20. " We, that are strong, 
ought to bear the infirmities of the weak." 
Romans xv, 1. 

The moral sense of mankind makes a distinc- 
tion not in degree, but in kind, between forging 
a note, and falling asleep in a prayer-meeting, 
or forgetting to keep a promise, or dispropor- 
tioning food to exercise, or indulging too long 
in sleep, or having an impure dream, or a 

wandering thought in church, or treating a 

4 



50 Mile-Stone Papers. 

neighbor coldly under a misapprehension of 
his worthiness. The universal conscience dis- 
criminates between a sin and a weakness or 
an error. 

Ethical writers insist that the moral sense 
of mankind pronounces innocent the inad- 
vertent doer of an act wrong in itself. They 
declare that there is a broad distinction be- 
tween wrong and guilty, on the one hand, and 
right and innocent, on the other ; and that 
guilt always involves a knowledge of the 
wrong, and an intention to commit it. Hence, 
in the light of the moral philosophies filling 
our libraries and taught in our colleges, a sin of 
inadvertence or ignorance needs no expiation. 
But this is a superficial view. 

Notwithstanding the broad distinction be- 
tween infirmities and sins, in one respect they 
are alike, they both need the atonement. This 
is shown by human laws. So great are the in- 
terests intrusted to men in certain posi- 
tions that severe penalties are attached to care- 
lessness, as in the handling of poisons by 
physicians and apothecaries, the involuntary 
sleep of a weary sentinel at his post, or in the 
case of the bridge-tender who through a 
faulty time-keeper has the draw open when 
the express train arrives. These are infirmi- 
ties of judgment or memory which men regard 
and punish as crimes. Now, what the exi- 



Sin, Infirmities, and the Atonement. 5 1 

gences of human society require for its safety 
in a few cases, the perfect moral government 
of God demands in all cases — satisfaction for in- 
voluntary sins. But there is a difference in 
God's favor. He always provides an atone- 
ment for such sins, and never executes sen- 
tence till the atonement has been rejected. 
Where the expiation cannot be known and 
applied he forbears to inflict the penalty. 
" The time of this ignorance God overlooked." 
Hence the law of God is more merciful than 
the statutes of men, which, in the cases specified, 
make no provision for escaping the punish- 
ment of involuntary offenses. The objection 
which some have raised against the divine 
Government for holding errors and inadver- 
tencies as culpable and penal, falls to the 
ground when we find the first announcement, 
of this fact accompanied by the institution of 
the sin-offering. See Lev. iv. 

Though a well-meant mistake does not de- 
file the conscience and bring into condemna- 
tion, nevertheless, when discovered it demands 
a penitent confession and a presentation of the 
great sin-offering unto the God of absolute 
holiness. The refusal to do this after the sin- 
offering has been provided involves positive 
guilt. Says John Wesley : " Not only sin, 
properly so-called, that is, a voluntary trans- 
gression of a known law ; but sin, improperly so- 



52 Mile-Stone Papers. 

called, that is, an involuntary transgression of 
a divine law, known or unknown, needs the 
atoning blood. I believe there is no such per- 
fection in this life as excludes these involun- 
tary transgressions, which I apprehend to be 
naturally consequent on the ignorances and 
mistakes inseparable from mortality. There- 
fore sinless perfection is a phrase I never use, 
lest I should seem to contradict myself. I 
believe a person filled with the love of God is 
still liable to involuntary transgressions." 
Hence Charles Wesley sings : — 

" Every moment, Lord, I want 
The merit of thy death." 

In view of this truth it is eminently ap- 
propriate for the holiest soul on earth to say 
daily, " Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors." 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 5 3 



CHAPTER V. 

THE TENSE READINGS OF THE GREEK NEW 
TESTAMENT. 

TN this age of astonishing scientific progress, 
when the microscope applied to living 
tissues reveals whole continents of evidences 
of design in bioplastic life, and marvelously 
strengthens theism in its debate with atheism, 
we have applied the same instrument to the 
Greek Testament, in the aid of exegesis, in the 
interest of disputed truths, and for the refuta- 
tion of certain doctrinal errors. Our micro- 
scope will be directed to a long-neglected field 
of research, the Greek tenses, not for the pur- 
pose of discovering new truths, but for the 
confirmation and clear elucidation of verities 
as old as revelation. It is the evident order 
of Providence that there should be an advance 
in the evidences of Christianity in its various 
departments. Hence, Tischendorf, in rummag- 
ing the moldy libraries of the Orient, lays open 
to the world a manuscript of the New Testa- 
ment hidden for ages among the lazy, wine- 
bibbing Greek monks of a Sinaitic convent ; 
and Smith digs up Nineveh from her long-lost 
grave, and makes her a swift witness against 



54 Mile-Stone Papers. 

the doubters of Old Testament history; as 
Schliemann unearths old Troy to the confusion 
of those German destructives who, with pipe 
in mouth, over mugs of beer, were proving to 
their own satisfaction that Ilium was a myth, 
and the Iliad a splendid fiction born of the 
mythopoetic faculty of successive generations 
of rhapsodists wandering over Greece. In the 
field of exegetics the late advance has been in 
the most searching grammatical analysis, at- 
tending to the accents, the particles, the 
tenses, and the emphatic order of the words. 
This results from the greater accuracy of 
modern scholarship. But most of our stand- 
ard commentaries were written by annotators 
trained to disregard the minutice of the Greek 
language. But Dean Alford, Bishop Ellicott, 
and other late sacred scholars, enrich their 
notes with gems of truth discovered by apply- 
ing the microscope of modern learning. They- 
call frequent attention to the tenses as con- 
veying important truth. Recent Greek Tes- 
tament grammarians, such as Winer and the 
younger Buttmann, indignantly rebuke the 
blindness of the older annotators to the value of 
the tenses. Says Winer, the highest authority 
in the grammar of the Greek Testament, " In 
regard to the tenses of the verb, Greek Testa- 
ment grammarians and expositors have ex- 
hibited very great misapprehensions. In 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 5 5 

general, the tenses are employed in the New 
Testament with exactly the same accuracy as in 
Greek authors." He then quotes Berthold, as 
a representative of the slovenly style of treat- 
ing the tenses, who says : " In the use of the 
tenses, it is well known that the New Testa- 
ment writers paid little regard to the rules of 
grammar." But Winer denies this charge, and 
asserts that, " strictly and properly, none of 
these tenses (aorist, imperfect, perfect, and 
pluperfect) ever stands for another, as com- 
mentators pretend." That the English scholar 
may understand our argument and our illus- 
trations we will give the following definitions : 
The present tense denotes what is now going 
on, and indicates a continuous, repeated, or 
habitual action, as / am writing. The im- 
perfect denotes the same continuity or repeti- 
tion in the past, as, / was writing. 

" The aorist indicative," says Goodwin, " ex- 
presses the simple momentary occurrence ot 
an action in past time, as, / wrote." The per- 
fect denotes an action as already finished at 
the present time, as, I have written ; my writing 
is just now finished. It also expresses the con- 
tinuance of the result down to the present 
time ; as the formula " It is written " is literally 
it has been written, and implies that it now 
stands on record ; the door has been shut, that 
is, it so remains till now. The pluperfect de- 



56 Mile-Stone Papers. 

notes an act which took place before another 
past act. 

The chief peculiarity lies in the aorist. We 
have in the English no tense like it. Except 
in the indicative, it is timeless, and in all the 
moods indicates what Krueger styles " single- 
ness of act." This idea our translators could 
not express without a circumlocution in words 
having no representatives in the Greek. "The 
poverty of our language," says Alford, "in the 
finer distinctions of the tenses, often obliges us 
to render inaccurately and fall short of the 
wonderful language with which we have to 
deal." His annotations abound in attempts to 
bring out the full significance of the tenses. 
For instance, in 2 Cor. xii, 7, "to buffet" (pres.) 
me, " is best thus expressed in the present. 
The aorist would denote but one such act of 
insult." This has been noted by both Chry- 
sostom and Theophylact. 

It is worthy of remark that when the aorist 
would indicate the momentary work of the 
spirit in regeneration and in entire sanctifica- 
tion, these learned writers, especially Bishop 
Ellicott and Dean Alford, for dogmatic reasons, 
refrain from calling attention to the force of 
the aorist, except it be to note that baptismal 
regeneration is a single act. 

As some of our readers may be disposed, 
from dogmatic reasons or prejudice, to dispute 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 57 

our inferences from this tense, we proceed to 
fortify ourselves by the following authorities : 
Says Buttmann, in his recent New Testament 
Grammar : " The established distinction be- 
tween the aorist, as a purely narrative tense, 
(expressing something momentary,) and the 
imperfect as a descriptive tense, (expressing 
something contemporaneous or continuous,) 
holds in all its force in the New Testament." 
Says Winer: " Nowhere in the New Testament 
does the aorist express what is wont to be." 
In applying these principles we make several 
important discoveries. We cite only a few 
specimens : — 

1. All exhortations to prayer and to spiritual 
endeavor in the resistance of temptation are 
usually expressed in the present tense, which 
strongly indicates persistence. 

Matt, vii, 7 : Keep asking, (pres.,) and it shall 
be given you ; seek (pres.) again and again, and 
ye shall find ; knock persistently, and it shall be 
opened unto you. 

Mark xi, 24: (Alford's version.) Therefore 
I say unto you, All things that ye persever- 
ingly pray (pres.) and ask for, (pres.,) keep be- 
lieving (pres.) that ye received, (aor., Alford,) 
and ye shall have them. 

Luke xi, 10: For every one that asketh 
(pres.) perseveringly, receiveth ; and he that 
seeketh (pres.) untiringly, findeth ; and to him 



58 Mile-Stone Papers. 

that persistently knocketh, (pres.) it shall be 
opened. Verse 13: How much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them 
that importunately ask (pres.) him. The idea 
implied is clearly expressed in Luke xviii, 1. 

John xvi, 24: Ask (pres.) repeatedly, and ye 
shall receive, that your joy may be permanently 
filled, (perfect.) 

Luke xiii, 24 : Persistently agonize to enter 
in, (aor.,) once Tor all, at the strait gate. 

Luke xviii, 13 : But he kept smiting, (imper- 
fect,) and saying, God be merciful (aor.) to me, 
the sinner. The conditions of pardon are per- 
sistently complied with. 

James i, 5-6 : If any of you lack wisdom, let 
him frequently ask (pres.) of God, etc. But let 
him ask (pres.) repeatedly in faith, etc. Heb. 
xi, 6: For he that persistently comes (pres.) to 
God must believe (aor. definitely grasps two 
facts) (1) that he exists, and (2) that he is be- 
coming a rewarder to those who diligently and 
repeatedly seek him. 

To this use of the present tense a remark- 
able exception occurs in Christ's last address 
before his crucifixion, John xiv-xvi. Here 
he for the first time directs us to pray in his 
name, and, as if to denote the influence of that 
all-prevailing name when presented to the Fa- 
ther in faith, the aorist tense is used when 
prayer is commanded, as if to teach that one 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 59 

presentation of the name of the adorable Son 
of God must be successful. See John xiv, 
13-14, and xvi, 23-24. In the 23rd verse the 
aorist occurs, but in verse 24 the present tense 
(be asking) is used, probably in view of the 
foreseen fact that there would be multitudes 
of half-believers, who must be encouraged to 
pray till they fully believe in the name of 
Jesus Christ. 

2. The next fact which impresses us in our 
investigation is the absence of the aorist and the 
presence of the present tense whenever the con- 
ditions of final salvation are stated. Our in- 
ference is that the conditions of ultimate sal- 
vation are continuous, extending through pro- 
bation, and not completed in any one act. 
The great requirement is faith in Jesus Christ. 
A careful study of the Greek will convince the 
student that it is a great mistake to teach that 
a single act of faith furnishes a person with a 
paid-up, non-forfeitable policy, assuring the 
holder that he will inherit eternal life, or that 
a single energy of faith secures a through 
ticket for heaven, as is taught by the Plymouth 
Brethren and by some popular lay evangelists. 
The Greek tenses show that faith is a state, a 
habit of mind, into which the believer enters 
at justification. The widespread mistake on 
this point is thus illustrated by Dr. John Hall, 
of New York • — 



60 Mile-Stone Papers. 

" Have you ever seen a young girl learn to 
fire a pistol? I will not say, imagine a boy, 
for he would naturally be brave about it. I 
have seen young ladies acquiring this accom- 
plishment, and it is a very curious thing. It 
may illustrate to you the false notion that 
many persons have about faith. The pistol is 
loaded and handed to the young lady. She 
takes hold of it very ' gingerly,' as if afraid it 
may shoot from the handle. Now, she means 
to go through with it ; there is the mark : so 
she takes the pistol in her hand, and holds it 
out a long way, and appears to take aim with 
the greatest exactness, but does not shoot. 
She is a little afraid, trembles, and holds back. 
At last she screws up her courage to the stick- 
ing-point, and, as you suppose, taking the 
most exact aim, shuts her eyes firmly, and fires. 
The thing is done, and done with. Well, now, 
many intelligent persons are led to believe that 
faith is something like that — something you 
end in an instant. You screw up your courage 
for it, then shut your eyes, and just believe 
once for all ; then the thing is done, and you are 
saved. Now, that is a mistaken idea about 
faith itself. That real faith which is honest 
goes on from time to eternity. 

Since we are writing for the English read- 
ers, we will refrain from quoting the Greek 
verbs, which would make our pages repulsive 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 61 

to the very class which we wish to benefit. 
Scholars will appreciate our argument if they 
accompany it with their Greek Testaments. 

John i, 12: But as many as received (aor.) 
him, (by a momentary and definite act,) to them 
gave he power to become the sons of God, 
even to them that are believing (present) per- 
severingly on his name. Here the aorist par- 
ticiple would have been used instead of the 
present, if a single act of faith secured ultimate 
salvation. 

John iii, 15 : That whosoever is continuously 
believing in him should not perish, (aor., once 
for all,) but be having everlasting life. Here, 
again, the present and not the aorist participle 
of the verb to believe is used, as it is again in 
verses 16 and 36. 

John v, 24: Verily, verily I say unto you, 
he that is always hearing my word, and con- 
stantly believing on him that sent me, hath 
eternal life, and is not coming into condemna- 
tion, but has passed over (perfect) from death 
unto life, and so continues. Says Alford : "So 
in 1 John v, 12, 13, the believing and the 
having eternal life are commensurate ; where 
the faith is, the possession of eternal life is, 
and when the one remits, the other is forfeited. 
But here the faith is set before us as an endur- 
ing faith, and its effects described in their com- 
pletion. (See Eph. i, 19, 20.)" Thus this great 



62 Mile-Stone Papers. 

English scholar rescues this chief proof-text of 
the Plymouth Brethren and the Moody school 
of evangelists from its perverted use, to teach 
an eternal incorporation into Christ by a single 
act of faith, and he demonstrates the common- 
sense doctrine that the perseverance of the 
saints is grounded on persistent trust in Jesus 
Christ. A wise generalship does not destroy 
a captured fortress, but garrisons it. 

John v, 44: How are ye able to put forth 
a momentary act of faith (aor.) who habitually 
receive (pres.) honor one of another, and are not 
constantly seeking the honor which is from 
God only ? This interrogatory implies the im- 
possibility of a single genuine act of faith 
springing up in a heart persistently courting 
human applause. 

John v, 47: But if ye are not habitually believ- 
ing his writings, how will ye believe my words ? 

John vi, 29 : The received text reads thus : 
This is the work of God, that ye believe (aor., 
once for all) on him whom he sent. When 
we first noticed this aorist tense, implying that 
the whole work required by God is summed 
up in an isolated act, we felt that there must 
be an error in this tense. By referring to Al- 
ford, Tregelles, and Tischendorf, we find that 
the aorist is rejected, and the present tense is 
restored, so that it reads : This is the work of 
God, that ye perseveringly believe, etc. 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 6$ 

John vi, 35 : He that is perpetually coming 
(pres.) to me shall not, by any means, (double 
negative,) once hunger, (aor.,) and he that is 
constantly believing in ME (emphatic) shall 
never, by any means, (double negative,) feel 
one pang of thirst, (aor.) 

John vi, 54 : Whoso eateth (pres., keeps eat- 
ing) my flesh, and drinketh (keeps drinking) 
my blood, hath eternal life. 

John xi, 25,26: He that believeth persist- 
ently (pres.) shall not, by any means, (double 
negative,) die (aor.) forever. 

John xx, 31 : That ye might believe (aor.; 
but Tischendorf has the present, continue to 
believe) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God, and that, believing constantly, (pres.,) ye 
might have life through his name. 

Acts xvi, 30, 31 : Sirs, what must I do to 
be instantaneously saved (aor.) ? Believe in- 
stantaneously (aor.) on the Lord Jesus. This is 
no exception to the general use of the tenses. 
The jailer wished immediate deliverance 
from his guilt, and was directed to a definite 
and sharply defined act of reliance on Christ. 
But in Rom. 1, 16, where future and eternal 
salvation is spoken of, it is promised to every 
one that perseveringly believes, (pres.) So 
also in Rom. iii, 22 ; iv, 24 ; ix, 33 ; x, 4, 11 ; 
1 Cor. i, 21 ; Eph. i, 19; 1 Thess. i, 7; ii, 10, 
13; iv, 14. 



64 Mile-Stone Papers. 

In 2 Thess. i, 10, we find, not in the re- 
ceived text, but in the best manuscripts, an 
exceptional instance of the use of the aorist in 
expressing the conditions of final salvation : 
" to be admired in all them that believe " 
(aor.) Alford says it is used because the 
writer is " looking back from that day on the 
past," probation being viewed as a point. 

A similar explanation he gives to the aorist 
in Heb. iv, 3, saying, that the standing-point 
is the day of entering into the rest. We pre- 
fer to teach that the aorist is preferred to the 
present in this passage because the general 
state of trust is not under discussion as the 
condition of entering eternal rest in heaven, 
but the grasping of the definite fact of Christ's 
ability to be the believer's Joshua, and to 
bring him into soul-rest in the present life. 
Hence the exhortation, verse n," Let us labor 
(Greek, hasten) to enter (aor.) into that rest." 
Other instances of the aorist, used when some 
distinct saying is to be believed, are found in 
John iv, 21 ; and in Matt, viii, 13. 

Rev. xxii, 14: Blessed are they that are 
constantly doing his commandments, that they 
may have right to the tree of life, and may 
enter through the gates into the city. The 
best manuscripts read, Blessed are they that 
are always washing their garments, etc. 
In both instances the present tense is used. 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 65 

This is the last time the conditions of final 
salvation are expressed in the Bible. 

There is in the New Testament one re- 
markable exception to the use of the present 
tense as expressing the continuousness of the 
conditions of salvation. We will not dodge 
Mark xvi, 16: He that believeth (aor.) once 
for all, and is baptized (aor.) once for all, shall 
be saved ; he that disbelieves (aor.) shall be 
damned. It may not be known to the reader 
that the chief biblical critics agree in rejecting 
as spurious verses 9-20 of this chapter. Tisch- 
endorf drops them entirely from his edition, 
and rumor says that the revisers of our English 
Bible have excluded them from their version. 
Dean Alford retains them in brackets, but 
thinks that both the external and the internal 
evidences are " very weighty against Mark's 
being the author. No less than twenty-one 
words and expressions occur in these verses, 
and some of them several times, which are 
never used by Mark, whose adherence to his 
own peculiar phrases is remarkable." 

Hence we conclude, from a thorough ex- 
amination of the above texts, that the spirit of 
inspiration has uniformly chosen the present 
tense in order to teach that final salvation de- 
pends on persevering faith. 

3. But when we come to consider the work 
of purification in the believer's soul, by the 



66 Mile-Stone Papers. 

power of the Holy Spirit, both in the new 
birth and in entire sanctification, we find that 
the aorist is almost uniformly used. This tense, 
according to the best New Testament gram- 
marians, never indicates a continuous, habitual, 
or repeated act, but one which is momentary, 
and done once for all. We adduce a few illus- 
trative passages : — 

Matt, viii, 2, 3 : And behold, there came a 
leper, and he kept worshiping (imperfect) him, 
saying, Lord, if thou wilt thou canst cleanse 
(aor.) me once for all. And Jesus, stretching 
out (aor.) his hand, touched (aor.) him, say- 
ing, I will, be thou instantaneously cleansed, 
(aor.) The leper prayed to be cleansed, not 
gradually, but instantly, and it was done at a 
stroke, according to his faith. 

Matt, xiv, 36, illustrates the difference be- 
tween the imperfect and the aorist: "And 
they kept beseeching (imp.) that they might 
touch just once (aor.) only the hem of his gar- 
ment ; and as many as only once touched (aor.) 
were instantaneously healed (aor.) 

Matt, xxiii, 25, 26: Woe unto you scribes 
and Pharisees, hypocrites ; for ye are constant- 
ly cleansing (pres.) the "outside of the cup and 
the platter, but within are full of extortion and 
injustice. Thou blind Pharisee, first cleanse 
(aor.) at a stroke the inside of the cup and of 
the platter, that the outside may instantly be- 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 6y 

come (aor.) clean also. If Christ had com- 
manded a gradual inward cleansing he would 
have used the present tense, " be cleansing by 
degrees." 

Luke xvii, 14: And it came to pass that 
while they were going (pres.) they were instan- 
taneously healed, (aor.) 

John xvii, 17-19: Sanctify (aor., imperative) 
them once for all through thy truth, that is, 
through faith in the distinctive office and work 
of the Comforter. . . . And for their sakes I 
am consecrating (pres.) myself, in order that 
they in reality may have been permanently 
sanctified. Christ's was not a real sanctifica- 
tion or cleansing, inasmuch as he was never 
polluted ; but the disciples needed sanctifica- 
tion in reality, or " truly." This is the sug- 
gested meaning of the words, " through the 
truth." See Bagster's marginal reading. Com- 
pare 2 Cor. vii, 14. Says Winer: " In the New 
Testament the obvious distinction between 
the imperative aorist — as sanctify, above — 
and the imperative present is uniformly main- 
tained. The imperative aorist denotes an 
action that is either rapidly completed and 
transient, or viewed as occurring but once. 
The imperative present denotes an action 
already commenced and to be continued, 
or an action going on, or to be frequently 
repeated." Both the aorist and the present 



68 Mile-Stone Papers. 

are sometimes used in the same sentence, 
as in John ii, 16: Take (aor.) these things 
hence instantly, and be not making (pres.) 
my Father's house a house of merchandise. 
I Cor. xv, 34: Awake, (aor.,) and be not 
sinning, (pres.,) or stop sinning. Acts xv, 11 : 
But we habitually believe that through the 
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we were 
saved, (aor., by a momentary and completed 
act,) even as they, (saved from guilt, not 
saved eternally.) Rom. vi, 13: Here occurs 
a beautiful instance of this distinction, af- 
fording an undoubted proof-text for instan- 
taneous sanctification, which is not seen in the 
English version : Nor render repeatedly (pres- 
ent imperative) your members as instruments 
of unrighteousness to sin ; but render (aor., by 
a final act of unreserved surrender, once for 
all) yourselves (not your members by a re- 
peated and piecemeal consecration) to God, 
(or for God's cause, says Tholuck,) as alive 
from the dead. Says Alford : " The present im- 
perative above denotes habit ; the exhortation 
guards against the recurrence of a devotion of 
the members to sin ; this aorist imperative, on 
the other hand, as in chap, xii, 1, denotes an 
act of self-devotion to God once for all, not 
a mere recurrence of the habit." Tholuck's an- 
notation brings out the completeness of this 
text as a proof of cleansing from original sin, 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 69 



\( A. 



ddcida, ungodliness in general ; dfiapria, the in- 
dwelling, predominant love of sin" 

Rom. xii, 1 : That ye present (aor.) your 
bodies, (as a single act, never needing to be re- 
peated.) The body is specified, because, says 
Tholuck, it is the organ of practical activity, 
or, as Olshausen, De Wette, and Alford say, 
" as an indication that the sanctification of 
Christian life is to extend to that part of man's 
nature which is most completely under bond- 
age to sin." If in Paul's conception believers 
were to be sinning and repenting all their 
days, as the best that grace could do for them, 
he would have used the present imperative, 
" Be presenting your bodies again and again." 
In Alford'snote on 1 Pet. ii, 5, he says: " The 
aorist is here used, because no habitual offer- 
ing, as in rite or festival, is meant, but the 
one, once for all, devotion of the body, as in 
Rom. xii, 1, to God as his." Both of these 
are proof-texts of a sharply defined transition 
in Christian experience, called entire consecra- 
tion, the human part of entire sanctification. 
That neither of these texts refers to justifica- 
tion is shown (1) by the fact that the persons 
addressed are already Christians ; (2) by the 
requirement that the sacrifice be holy, (Rom. 
xii, 1,) that is, accepted, as the lamb was 
examined by the priest, and pronounced fit 
for sacrifice, or acceptable to Jehovah; and 



•jo Mile-Stone Papers. 

i Pet. ii, 5 requires a holy or accepted priest- 
hood, both of which requirements symbolize 
a state of justification before God. 

Rom. xiii, 14: Put ye on (aor., a single 
definite act) the Lord Jesus Christ, and make 
(pres.) not, that is, quit making, provision for 
the flesh, etc. 

Act xv, 9 : Instantaneously purifying (aor.) 
their hearts by faith. This verse is a key to 
the instantaneous sanctifying work of the 
Holy Spirit wrought in the hearts of believers 
on the day of Pentecost, since the words even 
as he did unto us refer to that occasion. See 
Acts x, 45-47- 

1 Cor. v, 7 : Purge out (aor.) the old leaven, 
that ye may be a new lump. This summary 
and instantaneous excision of the incestuous 
offender illustrates the force of the aorist in 
verbs signifying to purify. 

1 Cor. vi, 11: But ye washed yourselves 
(aor., middle) by submitting to outward bap- 
tism ; ye were sanctified, (aor.,) ye were justified, 
(aor.) Here the sanctification is a momentary 
and completed act, the same as the justifica- 
tion. By the figure called the inverted chias- 
mus the words " were justified " are placed 
last. The natural English order would be, 
" were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
and were sanctified by the Spirit of our God." 
See Meyer. Rom. vi, 6 : Knowing this, that 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament, Ji 

our old man was crucified (aor.) once for all, 
that the body (being or totality) of sin might 
by destroyed, (aor., at a stroke,) that hence- 
forth we should no longer be serving (pres.) 
sin. For he who once for all (aor.) died (unto 
sin) has been justified from sin. 

The aorist here teaches the possibility of 
an instantaneous death-stroke to inbred sin, 
and that there is no need of a slow and pain- 
ful process, lingering till physical death or 
purgatorial fires end the torment. Men are 
not crucified limb by limb, after one part is 
dead finding a hand or arm or finger alive, 
but the whole life is extinguished all at once. 
A class of interpreters, who are afraid of entire 
sanctification in this life, and are especially 
horrified at an instantaneous purification by 
the stroke of Omnipotence — Calvinists gen- 
erally, and the Plymouth Brethren in particu- 
lar — tone down the word " destroy " to " render 
inoperative or powerless." The strength of 
this verb will be seen by studying the follow- 
ing texts, where it is rendered by " abolish," 
" consume," or " destroy." 2 Cor. iii, 13 ; Eph. 
ii, 15; 2 Tim. i, 10; I Cor. vi, T3; xv, 26; 
2 Thess. ii, 8 ; Heb. ii, 14. 

2 Cor. i, 21, 22 : Now, he who is continually 
establishing us with you, in Christ, and who 
once for all anointed (aor.) us, is God, who also 
sealed us (aor.) and gave (aor.) the earnest of 



72 Mile-Stone Papers. 

the Spirit in our hearts. Here the stablish- 
ing is constant ; the anointing, sealing, and en- 
dowment are momentary and completed acts. 
2 Cor. v, 21 : The received text reads, " that 
we might be made (pres., being made) the right- 
eousness/' etc. 

Meyer, quoting Stallbaum's note on Crito, 
insists that this present tense signifies that that 
which was proposed has not yet been accom- 
plished and passed by, but endures to the pres- 
ent. But Alford finds that all the best manu- 
scripts have the aorist tense, indicating one 
accomplished act. This may refer to the re- 
demption of the whole race, or to the transition 
of individuals into a state of holiness. Paul's 
use of the we favors the latter view. 2 Cor. 
vi, 13: Be ye also enlarged (aor.) by the 
sudden baptism of the Holy Spirit. 2 Cor. 
vii, 1 : Let us cleanse (aor.) ourselves at a 
stroke from every filthiness of the flesh and 
spirit, perfecting (pres.) holiness in the fear of 
the Lord. If Paul had been exhorting to a 
gradual inward cleansing he would certainly 
have used the present tense. The chapter 
division is here very unfortunate, and very 
much obscures the writer's thought. Bengel 
puts this verse in the paragraph which closes 
the sixth chapter. The course of the ar- 
gument is this: The promise of the Old 
Testament was that ye should be sons and 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 73 

daughters of God. Having realized the ful- 
fillment of this promise by adoption, let us 
who are sons cleanse ourselves, etc. 

Cleansing is here viewed as a human work, 
inasmuch as our application of the purifying 
power is by faith, as we are to make unto our- 
selves new hearts by availing ourselves of the 
regenerating Spirit. Paul uses the adhortative 
form, "let us cleanse," instead of the exhorta- 
tory form, " cleanse ye," simply to soften the 
command by including himself. This beauty 
of Greek rhetoric could not be quoted to prove 
that the writer was polluted in the flesh and 
in the spirit, that is, was indulging in sensual 
and in spiritual sins. See James iii, 5, 6, and 
1 Pet. iv, 3. The doctrine of this passage is 
that the faith that appropriates the Sanctifier 
is a momentary act, lifting the soul out of all 
outward or carnal, and inward or spiritual, sin. 
Had the process of sanctification been like 
washing a mud statue, a continuous and never 
completed work, as some teach, Paul would 
not have failed to express this idea by using 
the present tense : Let us be continually 
cleansing, etc. While the Wesleyan doctrine 
of instantaneous sanctification is taught by the 
aorist tense in this verse, the seemingly para- 
doxical Wesleyan doctrine of progressive sanc- 
tification is also taught by the present partici- 
ple, "perfecting" holiness, etc. 



74 Mile-Stone Papers. 

This word in this passage is defined in 
Bagster's Greek Testament Lexicon thus, " to 
carry into practice, to realize." The perfect 
inward cleansing instantaneously wrought by 
the Holy Spirit through faith is to be con- 
stantly and progressively carried outward into 
all the acts of daily life, as the moral discrim- 
ination becomes more and more acute with 
the increase of knowledge. 

Gal. i, 15, 16: But when it pleased God, who 
separated (aor.) me from my mother's womb, 
and called (aor.) me by his grace, to reveal 
(aor.) his Son in me, etc. The words rendered 
separated dj\<\ called are aorist participles. Says 
Goodwin : " The aorist participle regularly re- 
fers to a momentary or single action, which 
is past with reference to the time of the lead- 
ing verb." In this passage the leading verb 
is "pleased." After his birth and calling, or 
conversion, there was an instantaneous revela- 
tion of the Son of God within, to the spiritual 
eye, as there had been an objective revelation 
of the form of the Son of man to Paul's phys- 
ical eye on his way to Damascus. Both Elli- 
cott and Alford insist that the sequence of 
tenses here teaches that this inward revela- 
tion of Christ was after his conversion. This 
is in harmony with Christ's promise that he 
would manifest himself to those who already 
love him and evince their love by their obedi- 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 75 

ence. John xiv, 21 ; xvi, 14. This may well 
be styled Paul's second blessing. 

Various metaphors and phrases are em- 
ployed to denote entire sanctification, as will 
be seen in the following texts : Eph. iv, 22 : 
That ye put off (aor.) the old man, (the un- 
sanctified nature.) Here the aorist is used, 
because the act of putting off is one and 
decisive, " referring," says Alford, " to a direct, 
definite, and reflexive act." Verse 24: And 
that ye put on (aor.) that new man, which aft- 
er God is created (aor., was instantaneously 
created) in righteousness, etc. " Beware," says 
Alford, " of rendering, with Eadie and Peile, 
' that ye have put off,' which is inconsistent 
with the context, (ver. 25,) and not justified 
by the word 'you' being expressed." This 
epistle is addressed to the saints and the faith 
ful in Christ Jesus, chap, i, 1. Such un- 
doubted Christians are exhorted by one 
decisive act to lay off the old man, implying 
that he was not yet fully laid aside, and to put 
on the new man, as if Christ were not fully in- 
vesting and pervading the nature. Why these 
aorists, if only a gradual growth out of sin in- 
to holiness is contemplated ? 

Gal. ii, 19, 20: For I through the law died 
(aor., quite suddenly) to the law, that I might 
live unto God. I have been crucified (perfect) 
with Christ, (and stay dead till now,) and it is 



76 Mile-Stone Papers. 

no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in 
me. Says Alford : " The punctuation in the 
English version is altogether wrong." Here 
is a perfect answer, in Paul's testimony, to 
the advocates of a lingering death of the old 
man, continuing up to the separation of soul 
and body. There was a time when Paul died 
to sin by a crucifixion — a short and sharp 
kind of death — and the old man lived no more. 

Some people are forever on the cross, al- 
ways dying but never dead, because they do 
not grasp the sin-slaying power. 

Gal. v, 24 : And they that are Christ's cruci- 
fied (aor.) the flesh, together with the passions 
and lusts. From this it would appear that all 
believers are entirely sanctified as soon as they 
are regenerated. But Olshausen's explanation 
is very satisfactory : " It is remarkable here 
that the act of crucifying is designated as past, 
while it is, certainly, involved in the exhorta- 
tions of Paul that it is to be continued. This 
is explained by the fact that Paul here pre- 
sents the idea of a true Christian quite ob- 
jectively, and, therefore, in its completeness ; as 
such the believer has entirely crucified the 
flesh." The only remaining question relates 
to the time when this completeness may be 
realized. Wesley says : " Now, by faith, with- 
out doing or suffering more." Olshausen says : 
" In the concrete actuality, the complete idea, 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. J J 

and, therefore, too, the crucifying of the old 
man, never appear completely realized." That 
is to say, the old man is completely crucified 
in the abstract, but in the concrete man he al- 
ways lives ! Common sense sides with the 
Englishman against the German. 

Gal. iv, 19: My little children, of whom I 
travail in birth again until Christ be formed 
(aor.) in you. Here is a second spiritual birth, 
distinct from the first. All devout pastors find 
multitudes in their Churches, rocking as old 
babes in the cradle of spiritual infancy, and 
they travail in birth for them, that the 
faint image of- Christ enstamped upon them in 
their regeneration may be renewed and per- 
manently deepened. Like coins on which the 
head of Liberty is but slightly impressed, they 
need to be placed beneath the die again, and 
receive a deep and clear impress. The aorist 
expresses the instantaneous reminting. 

Eph. i, 13 : After that ye believed (aor.) ye 
were sealed, (aor.) Here the believing and 
the sealing are acts distinct, definite, and 
completed. 

Eph. ii, 5 : By grace ye have been saved, 
(perfect — and so continue.) 

Eph. iii, 16-19. Here we have seven aorists 
in four verses — grant, be strengthened, dwell, or 
take up his abode, may be able, to comprehend, 
to know, and be filled. May we not infer that 



78 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Paul chose this tense to convey most strongly 
and vividly the ability of Christ to do a great 
work in a short time, to save believers fully, 
and to endow them with the fullness of the 
Spirit ? If gradual impartations of the Sancti- 
fier had been in his thought, it is strange that 
he did not use one present tense to express 
endowment by degrees. 

" The Greek perfect participles rooted and 
grounded" says Dr. Karl Braune, " denote a 
state in which they already are and continue 
to be, which is the presupposition in order 
that they may be able to know." 

The same writer, in Lange's Commentary, 
in his note on " to comprehend," (aor.,) 
says that •* it here means more than a mere 
intellectual apprehension, a perception, but 
pre-eminently an inward experience corre- 
sponding with ' to know' (aor.) in verse 19." 
" The aorist tense of ' to comprehend,' " says 
Ellicott, " perhaps implies the singleness of the 
act, and the middle voice — called by Krueger 
a dynamic middle — indicates the earnestness, 
or spiritual energy, with which the action is 
performed." How strongly does this gram- 
matical examination of this passage confirm 
the essay of John Fletcher on the spiritual 
manifestation of Christ to the inward percep- 
tion of the perfect believer by an instantane- 
ous revelation ! 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 79 

Eph. iv, 13: Till we all attain (aor.) unto 
the unity of the faith and of the perfect knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, unto the full-grown 
man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ. — Alford's Version. 

The perfecting of the saints is here ex- 
pressed by a definite and momentary arrival 
at a point where faith merges into knowledge, 
where a Saviour believed becomes a Saviour 
fully realized. See Olshausen's full comment. 
This transition from faith to full knowledge is 
a crisis expressed by the aorist. It is when 
the Paraclete purges the film of inbred sin 
from the eye of the soul, and Jesus, as a living, 
loving, glorified, and complete Saviour, is man- 
ifested to the spiritual vision. Then the child, 
the imperfect believer, becomes a perfect man, 
and reaches the fullness of Christ ; that is, the 
abundance which he has to bestow, a fullness 
excluding all sin, but capable of eternal in- 
crease. That this point is before death is 
shown by the consequences which follow in 
the present life, as detailed in verses 14-16. 

Eph. v, 25, 26: Husbands, be constantly 
loving (pres.) your wives, even as Christ loved 
(aor.) the Church. Says Ellicott : " The pure 
aoristic sense is more appropriate and more in 
accordance with the historic aorist that follows, 
so that ' gave ' (aor.) is a specification of that 
wherein this love was pre-eminently shown. 



8o Mile-Stone Papers. 

The moment is seized upon when his love cul- 
minated in the gift of his life for us." That 
he might sanctify (aor.) and cleanse, (aor.) 
Bishop Ellicott again says : " Both sanctifica- 
tion and purification are dependent on the 
atoning death of Christ. There is thus no 
necessity to modify the plain and natural 
meaning of the verb to sanctify. Here it nei- 
ther implies simple consecration, on the one 
hand, nor expiation, absolution, on the other, 
but the communication and infusion of holiness 
and moral purity '." The tense indicates that 
it is a definite and momentary act. 

Col. i, 9: That ye might be filled (aor.) with 
the full knowledge of his will. 

Phil, iii, 12 : Not already perfected, (perfect,) 
brought to the end of his course and crowned. 
The same word is used in the same sense in 
Luke xiii, 32. Paul and Jesus disclaim the 
same perfection. See Heb. ii, 10; v, 9; xii, 23. 

Col. iii, 5 : Mortify, (aor., kill outright,) 
therefore, your members which are upon the 
earth ; fornication, etc. " Let nothing," says 
Bishop Ellicott, "live inimical to your true 
life, hidden in Christ. Kill at once (aor.) the 
organs and media of a merely earthly life." 
Here, in the very strongest terms, is the Wes- 
leyan doctrine of entire sanctification as a dis- 
tinct and instantaneous work of the Spirit 
clearly set forth. A young evangelist, holding 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 8 1 

meetings in a Baptist church, preached to 
pastor and people entire sanctification as im- 
mediately attainable by faith. The pastor was 
stumbled by the English reading of this text, 
" Mortify ;" that is, keep mortifying day by 
day. He thought that he must ever keep a 
little sin alive in his heart in order to be forever 
mortifying it. His mistake was (i) in overlook- 
ing the real meaning of mortify, to make dead, 
and substituting the idea of repression ; and 
(2) in disregarding the aorist tense of the com- 
mand, enjoining a decisive and momentary act; 
to be done once for all. 

Col. iii, 8 : But now put off (aor.) all these : 
anger, wrath, etc. The aorist imperative is a 
broom that sweeps the heart clean at one stroke 
of omnipotent power. 

Verse 12 : Put on, (aor.,) therefore, etc. By 
the incoming of the abiding Comforter all the 
excellences of the Christian character are to be 
at once assumed. This is the positive side of 
entire sanctification, the negative being the 
mortifying of sin in verse 5. 

Verse 13: Forbearing (pres.) and forgiving 
(pres.) There will be occasion for the constant 
exercise of these virtues. 

Verse 15 : Let the peace of God rule (pres.) 
constantly, and be (pres.) ye thankful always: 

Verse 16 : Let the word of God dwell (pres.) 
perpetually. 



82 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Verse 18: Wives submit (pres.) yourselves 
constantly, etc. 

Verse 19: Husbands love (pres.) your wives 
at all times — on washing days, when breakfast 
is late, and the bread is sour. 

Verse 20 : Children obey (pres.) your parents 
constantly. 

Verse 21 : Fathers provoke (pres.) not at 
any time your children. 

Thus a series of present imperatives extends 
through this chapter and to verse 6 in chapter 
iv, enjoining daily recurring duties. But the 
aorist imperatives are always used when the 
duty of putting away sin from the heart, and 
putting on the fruits of the Spirit, is com- 
manded. Let the candid reader examine this 
chapter, and he will see that the reason for the 
use of the aorists is that entire sanctification 
and the fullness of the Spirit are viewed as a 
work to be finished at a stroke, while duties 
to our fellow-men are to be constantly repeated. 
No other account can be given for the alter- 
nation of tenses in the imperatives in this 
chapter. 

1 Thess. iii, 13 : To the end he may stablish 
(aor.) your hearts unblamable in holiness. 
Here the tense indicates a single and moment- 
ary act. The same Greek construction occurs 
in chapter iv, 9, where the present tense is 
used, " to love one another," a constant duty. 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 83 

A similar form of expression in the Greek 
occurs in Heb. ix, 14 : to serve (pres.) the living 
God. 

1 Thess. iv, 8: Who also gave (aor.) unto 
us his Holy Spirit. Here the aorist is used, 
says Alford, " as being a great definite act of 
God by his Son." The act is just as defi- 
nite whether the gift is dispensational or in- 
dividual. 

1 Thess. v, 23 : And the very God of peace, 
once for all, sanctify (aor.) you wholly, and 
your whole spirit, and soul, and body be pre- 
served, (initial aorist, to mark the beginning in 
the heart of the power that keeps the believer.) 
The nicety of Paul's grammatical knowledge 
is seen in verse 25 : Brethren, pray (pres.) for 
us. Greet (aor.) all the brethren with a holy 
kiss. The praying was to be continuous, the 
kissing momentary. 

2 Tim. ii, 21 : Purge, (aor.) Sanctified and 
prepared are both in the perfect tense, imply- 
ing the permanent result of the definite act of 
purging. 

Titus ii, 14: The verbs gave, redeem, and 
purify are all aorists, indicating momentary 
acts. The purifying is before death, because 
its subjects are to be zealous of good works. 

Titus iii, 6: Shed (aor.) on us abundantly: 
(1) To inaugurate a dispensation ; (2) To sanc- 
tify and endow individuals. Personal pente- 



&4 Mile-Stone Papers. 

costs have been experienced all along the ages. 
Paul received such a pentecost. Rom. v, 5. 

Heb. iv, 1 1 : Let us labor, (hasten, aor.,) there- 
fore, to enter into that rest. A vigorous and 
earnest effort is enjoined. The word labor in 
Greek is radically the same as haste in Josh, 
iv, 10. And the people hasted (aor.) and passed 
over. 

Heb. xiii, 12: That he might sanctify (aor.) 
the people . . . suffered (aor.) without the gate. 

1 Pet. i, 15 : So become ye (aor., by an all- 
surrendering act of faith) holy in all manner 
of conduct. Verse 16, (according to the re- 
ceived text :) Become ye (aor.) instantaneously 
holy, for I am holy. The aorist in these verses 
indicates a transition from sin to holiness, and 
not a progress. 

1 Pet. iii, 15 : Sanctify (aor.) the Lord Christ 
in your hearts. Says Wiesinger, indorsed by 
Alford : " The addition of ' in your hearts ' is 
added to the Old Testament quotation, to 
bring out that the sanctification must be per- 
fected in the inner parts of a man, and so keep 
him from false fear." " Care only for this, that 
your heart may be a temple of Christ ; then 
nothing will disturb you." This implies that 
there is a time when he becomes completely 
enthroned in the heart. Hence the precision 
of the aorist : Sanctify once for all a place for 
the Lord Christ, or Christ as Lord, in your 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 85 

hearts. See the critical reading of Christ for 
God. Verses 15-16 show the results in this life. 

1 Pet. v, 7 : We copy Alford's note : " CAST- 
ING (aor., once for all, by an act which includes 
the life) ALL YOUR anxiety (' the whole of,' not 
every anxiety as it arises, for none will arise if 
this transference has been effectually made) 
UPON HIM." The parentheses are Alford's. 

2 Pet. i, 19 : We have the highest authority 
for reading this without a parenthesis, which 
some put in, obscuring the sense. No passage 
of Scripture more strikingly describes the 
writer's Christian experience, first of painful 
doubt and then of cloudless assurance ; first a 
spasmodic clinging of the intellect to the ex- 
ternal evidences of miracle and prophecy, and 
then the sunrise — Christ manifested, the day- 
star in his heart. There are in this verse four 
verbs in the present tense, have, do, take, shin- 
eth, representing the alternation of light and 
darkness in early Christian experience. The 
lamp feebly glimmers in a gloomy, or, literally, 
dirty place, giving just light enough to see im- 
purities, but not fire enough to consume them. 
In this twilight state doubts harass the soul, 
and there is an intense wishing and watching 
for the day-dawn and the rising sun. To the 
patient waiter there is at last a tropical sun- 
rise. The darkness flees, the filthy place is 
cleansed 



86 Mile-Stone Papers. 

'Tis Love ! 'tis Love ! thou diedst for me ; 

I hear thy whisper in my heart ; 
The morning breaks, the shadows flee : 

Pure, universal Love thou art : 
To me, to all, thy bowels move, — 
Thy nature and thy name is Love. 

But how is this shown in the Greek text ? 
Note the two aorist verbs dawn and arise, 
" putting an end," says Alford, " to the state 
indicated by the present participles above." 
What this day-star is Grotius, De Wette, and 
Huther best explain, who think that some 
state in the readers themselves is pointed at, 
which is to supervene upon a less perfect state. 
Says Huther: " The writer distinguishes be- 
tween two degrees of Christian life : in the first, 
faith rests upon outward evidences ; in the sec- 
ond, on inward revelations of the Spirit ; in the 
first, each detail is believed separately as such ; 
in the second, each is recognized as a necessary 
part of the whole. And hence, being in the 
former is naturally called a walking in a dis- 
mal, dirty place, in the light of a lamp or can- 
dle, while the being in the latter is a walking 
in the morning." Alford adds : " This latter I 
believe to be nearly the true account." Let 
us see what is taught here : (i) Two states of 
spiritual life, symbolized by lamplight and sun- 
light. (2) The aorist tense marks a sharply 
defined emergence from the first to the second, 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 87 

by the glorious King of day arising in the 
heart. This we believe to be a correct exe- 
gesis of this highly figurative and beautiful 
text. It accords with the experience of all 
who have entered into the definite experience 
of perfect love. 

2 Pet. ii, 20: After they escaped (aor.) the 
pollutions of the world through the full knowl- 
edge (epignosis) of the Lord, etc. Verse 22 : 
The sow that was washed, (aor.) 

Heb. x, 2 : Once purged, (perfect,) a cleans- 
ing once for all and permanent. Such have 
no more conscience, or consciousness, of sins. 

Heb. x, 26: For if we willfully sin (pres., en- 
ter upon a course of sin) after we receive (aor.) 
the full knowledge (epignosis ) of the truth, etc. 

Heb. xiii, 20 : Make you perfect, (aor., an in- 
sulated act.) The workman and not the work 
is to be made perfect. 

1 John i, 9 : If we persistently confess (pres.) 
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive (aor.) 
us our sins, and to cleanse (aor.) us from all 
unrighteousness. The cleansing is just as 
definite, distinct, and decisive as the forgive- 
ness. Alford cannot escape the force of these 
aorists. " Observe the two verbs are aorists, 
because the purpose of the faithfulness and 
justice of God is to do each as one great com- 
plex act — to justify and to sanctify wholly and 
entirely." Diisterdieck says : "The death and 



88 Mile-Stone Papers. 

blood of Christ are set forth in two aspects: 
(i) as a sin-offering for our justification, and (2) 
as the purifying medium for our sanctifica- 
tion." If the purifying is to be by degrees, 
the present tense would have been used in- 
stead of the aorist. He pleads for gradual sanc- 
tification, but there is no more grammatical 
basis for it than there is for a progressive jus- 
tification. 

1 John ii, 1 : These things I write unto you, 
that ye sin (aor.) not even once. And if any 
man sin, (aor., once, not habitually,) we have 
(pres.) constantly an advocate, etc. 

1 John ii, 27: Received (aor.) in an instant 
of time. The anointing of the high priest was 
an act, not a process. 

1 John iii, 6: This text in the English favors 
the notion that the man who loves not his 
brother never knew God savingly. But the 
perfect of this verb " to know " has acquired 
a present meaning. (See Winer, page 290.) 
Says Alford : " Have known, and many other 
perfects, lose altogether their reference to the 
past event, and point simply to the present 
abiding effect of it." Hence Alford's version: 
" Whosoever sinneth seeth him not, neither 
knoweth him." He may have both seen (spir- 
itually perceived) and known him, but he does 
not now. 

I John iii, 9 : Whosoever has been born 



Tense Readings of the Greek Testament. 89 

(perfect, brought into permanent sonship) of 
God is not habitually sinning, for his seed is 
abiding in him, and he is not able to be sin- 
ning because he has been born (perf.) of God. 
If the aorist tense had been used in this verse 
instead of the perfect, it would have been a 
strong proof-text for the doctrine, " Once in 
grace always in grace." But, says Alford : 
" The abiding force of this divine generation 
in a man excludes sin ; where sin enters that 
force does not abide ; the has been born (perf.) 
is in danger of becoming the was born, (aor.;) 
a lost life instead of a living life. And so all 
such passages as this, instead of testifying, as 
Calvin would have this one do, to the doctrine 
of the final perseverance of the regenerate, do, 
in fact, bear witness to the opposite, namely, 
that, as the Church of England teaches, we 
need God's special grace every day to keep us 
in the state of salvation, from which every act 
and thought of sin puts us in peril of falling 
away." 

The critical reader may find aorists in the 
Greek Testament which must imply a state 
and not an insulated act. These group them- 
selves into the following classes : — 

1. Where no present tense is in use in the 
Greek. 

2. Where the signification of the verb itself 
implies continuance, as to live, to abide, to 



90 Mile-Stone Papers. 

walk, to keep, etc. Here the aorist marks the 
entrance upon the state, called an " inceptive 
aorist." (See Hadleys Greek Grammar, § 708.) 

3. Unconnected and sudden aorist impera- 
tives are used both in the New Testament and 
in classical authors to express the strong emo- 
tion of the speaker. See 2 Tim. iv, 2 ; James 
iv, 7-10. 

4. Rarely in the Greek Testament an habit- 
ual act is expressed by the aorist, when the 
period of its continuance is long past, and the 
course of action is viewed as a completed 
whole. See Alford on 2 Thess. i, 10, and 
I Peter iii, 6. 

The aorists of verbs denoting sanctification 
and perfection quoted in this essay, belong to 
no one of these exceptional classes. 

We have looked in vain to find one of these 
verbs in the imperfect tense when individuals 
are spoken of. The verb hagiazo, to sa?tctify> 
is always aorist or perfect. See Acts xx, 32 ; 
xxvi, 18; Rom. xv, 16; 1 Cor. i, 2 ; 2 Tim. 
ii, 21 ; Heb. x, 10, 29; Jude 1. The same may 
be said of the verbs katharizo and hagnizo, 
to purify. Our inference is that the energy of 
the Holy Spirit in the work of entire sanctifica- 
tion, however long the preparation, is put forth 
at a stroke by a momentary act. This is cor- 
roborated by the universal testimony of those 
who have experienced this grace. 



The Obedience of Faith, 91 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH. 

TN the epistle to the Romans St. Paul uses 
this expression twice in the Greek. It in- 
dicates more than justification by faith, the 
great doctrine which is set forth and defended 
in that epistle. It shows that true obedience 
springs from faith in Jesus Christ, and receives 
all its vitality from that root. There is but 
one command which the sinner is called upon 
to perform before evangelical faith. This is 
repentance. In fact, it is a part of faith, as the 
introduction is a part of the book. There is a 
divine philosophy in the order of these two 
precepts, " Repent and believe." Repentance 
toward God must precede faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ — such repentance as leads the 
wicked man to forsake his way, and the un- 
righteous man his thoughts, before he can ef- 
fectually " turn unto God, who will abundantly 
pardon." By this assertion we do not deny 
that the regenerate soul has a clearer view of 
his sins, and a stronger abhorrence of his de- 
pravity, after he is born of the Spirit than be- 
fore that great and glorious work. Now the 



92 Mile-Stone Papers. 

important question arises : " How can this pro- 
clivity toward sin be_ eradicated from the re- 
generate soul, so that it may hereafter gravitate 
upward, and not downward?" This is the 
real want of thousands of God-fearing people : 

" Grovelers below, yet wanting will to rise ; 
Tired of the world, unfitted for the skies." 

Many have been told that they must wait 
till death — the greater redeemer than the Son 
of God, and the mightier sanctifier than the 
Holy Spirit — has come to their relief. It is 
true that Jesus does not propose to present us 
unto himself faultless in the presence of his 
glory, freed from infirmities, those scars of sin, 
till we have crossed the river of death. But 
Jesus has, in this life, a balm for the medica- 
tion and perfect cure of the wounds of sin in 
this life. Hence St. Paul exhorts the Corinthi- 
ans to cleanse themselves " from all filthiness 
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in 
the fear of God." And he prays for the Thes- 
salonians, first, that they may be sanctified 
"wholly," and, secondly, that their " whole 
spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blame- 
less unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
This certainly means sanctification before 
death, and preservation in a state of holiness 
in this life. 

Many Christians do not attain this state be- 



The Obedience of Faith. 93 

cause they fail to discriminate between the ex- 
piatory work of Christ, which has as its object 
the removal of guilt, and the office of the Holy 
Spirit, which is the renovation of the soul. 
Justification by atoning blood is the work of 
the second person in the Trinity ; sanctifica- 
tion is that of the third. Where this distinc- 
tion is lost, and the unity of God is the only 
doctrine preached) as in the Mohammedan 
mosque, the Jewish synagogue, and the Uni- 
tarian Church, we look in vain for the spiritual 
transformation of the worshipers. It would be 
like looking for fruitful orange groves in Lab- 
rador. Justification is promoted in proportion 
as the guilt of sin and its only remedy, the 
blood of Christ, are most emphasized ; and en- 
tire sanctification is in proportion to the faith- 
ful portrayal of sin in believers, and its great 
antidote, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, " puri- 
fying their hearts by faith." 

Now, the important practical question re- 
mains to be answered : " What must a justi- 
fied soul do to attain this state of holiness, the 
extinction of inbred sin within ? " The words, 
" obedience of faith," contain the answer. 
What am I to obey ? The sum of the law is 
epitomized by Jesus: "Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with all thy heart* and with all 
thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with 
all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself." 



94 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Can I do this in my own strength? No; but 
I can bring my powers and capacities as emp- 
ty vessels unto the Holy Spirit, and he will 
fill them by shedding abroad the love of God 
in my heart. He does this by revealing 
to me the fact of God's great love to me, 
which awakens my soul to respond to his great 
love with all the capacity of my being. This 
bringing my empty heart to God is the act of 
consecration in obedience to Christ's summary 
of man's whole duty. When this is done, and 
unwavering faith in the divine promise accom- 
panies the act, the soul realizes the cleansing 
power and the fullness of God. But when the 
faith is inadequate the cleansing may take 
place, but not the fullness of love. From this 
state the believer either very soon falls back 
into the old mixed life of sin and repentance, 
or goes forward to the experience of " all the 
fullness of God." 

To abide in this state of perfect victory and 
full trust we are to walk by the same rule of 
" the obedience of faith," and mind the same 
things that we did when we entered this state, 
by daily maintenance of our consecration, and 
a renewed grasp of the promises. The power 
of God must be relied upon as much in our 
abiding in, as in our entering, this state. We 
are to be " kept by the power of God through 
faith." When we shall find a stream steadily 



The Obedience of Faith. 95 

flowing without a supplying fountain we may 
expect to find a soul living in holiness without 
the enabling efficiency of the Holy Spirit. 
The figure of a " well of water springing up in- 
to eternal life " is explained subsequently by 
John as the fullness of the Spirit in the heart. 
Compare John iv, 14, with vii, 37-39. 

The intimate connection between obedience 
and faith is expressed by Christ, when he says : 
" If any man will do (or wills to do) his will, 
he shall know of the doctrine." 

A beautiful illustration of this occurs in 
u Cecil's Remains." His little daughter was 
one day playing with some beads which she 
seemed to prize very highly. Her father very 
abruptly commanded her to throw them into 
the fire. " The tears started in her eyes. She 
looked very earnestly at me," he says, " as 
though she ought to have a reason for such a 
cruel sacrifice. ' Well, my dear, do as you 
please ; but you know I never told you to do 
any thing which I did not think would be good 
for you.' She looked at me a few moments 
longer, and then, summoning up all her forti- 
tude, her breast heaving with the effort, she 
dashed them into the fire. ' Well,' said I, ' let 
them lie ; you shall hear more about them 
another time ; but say no more about them 
now.' Some days after I bought her a box full 
of larger beads and toys of the same kind. 



g6 Mile-Stone Papers. 

When I returned home I opened the treasure 
and set it before her. She burst into tears 
with ecstasy. ' Those, my child/ said I, ' are 
yours because you believed me when I told 
you it would be better for you to throw those 
two or three paltry beads into the fire. Now, 
that has brought you this treasure. But now, 
my dear, remember as long as you live what 
faith is.' " 

Here faith and obedience are beautifully in- 
terlaced, like golden and silver threads inter- 
twined, for the adorning of the character. 

The fact that genuine faith always includes 
obedience is a sufficient answer to the skeptic's 
objection that salvation is made to hinge upon 
a bare intellectual act, without reference to the 
character of the agent. It is just the opposite. 
It is an act of submission to the highest au- 
thority in the universe — an act which tends to 
conserve its moral order, by enthroning the 
moral law in universal supremacy; 

A singular Confirmation of the truth of these 
remarks is found in the Greek Testament, 
where apeitkeia, unbelief, is frequently used to 
signify disobedience and obstinacy. The un- 
belief for which men are to be everlastingly 
condemned lies in the rebellious attitude of 
the will toward Jesus Christ, and not in any 
supposed innocent intellectual inability to be- 
lieve the truth of God's word, 



The Obedience of Faith. 97 

The practical bearing of all this upon those 
who are seeking to be lifted into the higher 
regions of Christian experience is, that the 
faith which is the required condition of such a 
spiritual uplift is possible only to a soul whose 
obedience has reached the point of entire sur- 
render to the will of God, where there is a will- 
ingness to walk to Calvary with the fainting 
Christ, and to be crucified with him. 

Then, and then only, will the Christ-life take 
the place of the old self-life, enabling the be- 
liever to adopt St. Paul's words : " I have been 
crucified with Christ ; alive no longer am I, but 
alive is Christ within me." * Let no one accuse 
Luther of boasting, when through " the obedi- 
ence of faith" he reached that deadness to 
sin, and that conscious fullness of the divine 
life, which enabled him to say : " If any man 
knocks at the door of my breast, and says, Who 
lives here ? my answer is, Jesus Christ lives 
here, not Martin Luther." The great reformer 
did not stumble into this Christian experience. 
To reach it he was often closeted with God 
three hours a day, studying the divine promises, 
and wrestling with the Lord, as Jacob with the 
angel. Says Spurgeon : " There is a point in 
grace as much above the ordinary Christian as 
the ordinary Christian is above the worldling." 
Of such he says : " Their place is with the eagle 

* Meyer. 

7 



98 Mile-Stone Papers. 

in his eyrie, high aloft. They are rejoicing 
Christians, holy and devout men, doing service 
for the Master all over the world, and every- 
where conquerors through him that loved 
them." The mountain top is a position men 
do not slide into but climb up to. Thus these 
mountain-top saints climbed up the ascent by 
the stairway of the gospel promises, with the 
sunlit summit in full view as a definite aim. 
Their faith made their obedience spontane- 
ous, free, and gladsome ; while their conscious 
obedience reacted on their faith, making it 
strong and tenacious of the promise of Jesus : 
" If ye love me, KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS, and 
I will pray the Father, and he shall give you 
another Comforter, that he may abide with you 
forever." 

" The perfect way is hard to flesh ; 

It is not hard to love ; 
If thou wert sick for want of God, 

How swiftly wouldst thou move ! 

" Then keep thy conscience sensitive ; 

No inward token miss : 
And go where grace entices thee : — 

Perfection lies in this." 



Seeking and not Finding. 99 



CHAPTER VII. 

SEEKING AND NOT FINDING 

" I sought Him in the secret cell 

With unavailing care ; 
Long did I in the desert dwell, 

Nor could I find him there." 

^pHERE are more persons who seek the 
pardon of their sins than there are who 
find that great blessing. There are various 
reasons, but the chief one lies in the fact that 
the unsuccessful seekers do not really trust in 
Jesus Christ. They are told to trust, and they 
try, and they think that they do, but they are 
mistaken. The truth is, that saving faith is 
possible only in a certain state of mind. There 
is a divinely prescribed and irreversible order 
of duties : first, repent, and, secondly, believe. 
When a sinner feels that he is lost, and loathes 
his sins, he is more than half saved. Trust in 
Christ for forgiveness is possible only to one 
who realizes his utter helplessness. 

More are they who seek, than find, the rest 
of faith or love made perfect, variously styled 
the higher life, entire sanctification, or evan- 
gelical perfection. Various are the reasons 



ioo Mile-Stone Papers. 

for failure, but the chief is a lack of faith in 
Christ, the living High-priest, and Giver of the 
Holy Ghost, the Sanctifier. As in the case of 
the penitent sinner a certain state of mind is 
requisite to the faith that saves, so in the case 
of the Christian believer seeking purity of 
heart, before he can exercise perfect trust he 
must reach a certain state. That state is a 
sense of nothingness. Hence Charles Wesley 
sings : — 

" Now let me gain perfection's height ! 

Now let me into nothing fall ! 
As less than nothing in thy sight, 

And feel that Christ is all in all." 

To the same point does Theodore Monod 
come, in that beautiful little hymn, " The 
Altered Motto," written during the Oxford 
Convention, the last line of each of the last three 
verses expressing the gradual approach of the 
believer, struggling toward the point of noth- 
ingness : — 

' ' O the bitter shame and sorrow, 

That a time could ever be 
When I let the Saviour's pity- 
Plead in vain, and proudly answered, 

' All of self, and none of thee ! ' 

" Yet he found me ; I beheld him 

Bleeding on the accursed tree ; 
Heard him pray, ' Forgive them, Father ! ' 
And my wistful heart said faintly, 

' Some of self, and some of thee.' 



Seeking and not Finding. ioi 

" Day by day his tender mercy, 

Healing, helping, full and free, 
Sweet and strong, and ah ! so patient, 
Brought me lower, while I whispered, 

' Less of self, and more of thee.' 

"Higher than the highest heavens, 

Deeper than the deepest sea, 
Lord, thy love at last hath conquered ; 
Grant me now my soul's desire, 

' None of self, and all of thee.' " 

Many, indeed, are the professed Christians 
who get no farther than the first verse. A 
large number of accepted souls live in that 
mixed state expressed by the second. Too 
many aim at nothing more than the state as- 
pired to in the third. Happy indeed are the 
few who can shout over the accomplished fact 
in their experience, 

" None of self, and all of thee ! " 

Those lights of the dark ages, stigmatized as 
mystics, Bernard, Hugo, Eckhart, and Tauler, 
heroic souls of whom their age was not worthy, 
however great their theoretical errors, were 
certainly right in their central doctrine of the 
perfect abnegation of self as a pre-requisite to 
entire devotion to God. 

But now comes the practical question, How 
may I reach the state of nothingness ? Is it a 
gift of God, or is it attainable by my own ex- 
ertions? In a sense it is both. Every step 
Christward is of grace, and grace is of God. 



102 Mile-Stone Papers. 

But this grace assists our efforts, and is inef- 
fectual without them. Hence it is proper to 
sing the prayer : — 

" O to be nothing, nothing, 

Only to lie at his feet ; 
A broken and emptied vessel, 

For the Master's use made meet." 

Or, as we heard a Christian woman recently 
pray, " O Lord, give us the baptism of noth- 
ingness." 

At the same time we are to remember the 
divine command, " Humble yourselves under 
the mighty hand of God," as implying that our 
wills are to be active in sinking out of self into 
God. St. Paul says, " I have been crucified 
with Christ ; it is no longer I that live, but 
Christ liveth in me." The power of divine 
grace had nailed him to the cross, but he had 
sought this very crucifixion, and willingly 
yielded his hands to the spikes, his side to the 
spear, and his head to the thorn-crown. The 
hostility of the self-life to this sudden and vi- 
olent extinction is the chief hinderance to 
faith. '• How can ye believe who receive honor 
one of another, and seek not the honor that 
cometh from God only?" Jesus indicates 
that the self-life finds its chief nutriment in 
the esteem and applause of our fellow-men. 
It is not by accident that in every age those 
who have fully consecrated themselves to 



Seeking and not Finding. 103 

Christ, and have been entirely sanctified by 
the Holy Spirit, and have proclaimed this as 
the privilege and duty of all Christians, have 
been under a cloud of reproach. Christ has 
set reproach and persecution as two cherubim 
at the gate of the Eden of perfect love, to test 
the consecration, courage, and confidence of 
all who seek to enter. They who lack any one 
of these qualities must be excluded from this 
paradise. Dear seeker of soul-rest, are you will- 
ing to have your name cast out as evil, meek- 
ly to wear opprobrious nicknames, to be ac- 
counted as the filth and offscouring of all 
things for your testimony to Christ as a per- 
fect Saviour, able to save unto the uttermost? 
But, say you, is this the indispensable condi- 
tion ? In this age of enlightenment and relig- 
ious liberty has not the offense of the cross 
ceased ? Nay, verily, except to a world-con- 
forming sort of Christians, who keep up a state 
of peace with the world and a truce with the 
devil by declaring that they consciously sin 
every day, and that there is no efficacy in the 
blood of Christ to cleanse the heart of its de- 
pravity, and no power in the Holy Spirit to 
keep the trusting soul from sinning. Jesus 
wishes that all who propose to follow him fully 
should count the cost, and not shrink back in 
disappointment when they find that he has not 
where, in worldly honors, to lay his head. 



104 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Hence total and irreversible self-abandonment 
is the indispensable condition of that oneness 
with Christ, that harmony with God, which, in 
scriptural phrase, is called perfect love. 

This must be the language of the lip and the 
sincere meaning of the heart : — 

" Welcome, welcome, dear Redeemer 

Welcome to this heart of mine ; 
Lord, I make a full surrender ; 

Every power and thought be thine — 
Thine entirely, 

Through eternal ages thine." 

When the will gladly makes this uncon- 
ditional surrender, it is easy to trust unwaver- 
ingly in Christ as the uttermost Saviour. In 
fact, when the self-life expires, the fullness 
of the Spirit comes in as naturally as the 
air rushes into a vacuum. Faith then be- 
comes as natural as breathing. We create the 
vacuum by dethroning our idols. 

The whole question relating to the faith that 
leads the believer into full salvation is simply 
whether he will sell all to buy this pearl of 
great price. Nearly all the delay, difficulty, 
and danger lies at this point, a reluctance to 
part with all things. Self can assert itself just 
as effectually in a little as in a great thing. If 
self has life and strength enough to cling to a 
straw, it has power to bar the gate to perfect 
soul-rest. 



Seeking and not Finding. 1 05 

It is said that a traveler by night fell into a 
dry well. His cry for help attracted a neigh- 
bor, who let down a rope and attempted to 
draw him up, but did not succeed, because the 
rope kept slipping through the fallen man's 
hands. At length the rescuer, suspecting that 
the man's grip was feeble because of his having 
something in his hands besides the rope, called 
out to him, " Have you not something in your 
hands?" "Yes," replied the man at the 
bottom, " I have a few precious parcels which 
I should like to save as well as myself." 
When at last he became willing to drop his 
parcels, there was muscular power enough in his 
hands to hold fast the rope till he was de- 
livered. 

My dear friend, seeking purity of heart, and 
still finding yourself, day after day, in the 
horrible pit of impurity, though the golden 
chain of a complete salvation is lowered to 
you from above, have you not something in 
your hands? How about those precious par- 
cels? Have you dropped them all? Then 
lay hold on the hope that is set before thee, 
and keep hold till thy feet are on the rock, 
and songs of deliverance burst forth from thy 
lips, and thy goings are henceforth established 
in the highway of holiness. Is that last par- 
cel too precious to be dropped ? Well, say 
then, " I will not give up my idol," and no 



106 Mile-Stone Papers. 

longer dishonor God by saying, " I cannot 
believe." 

All unbelief touches God at a tender point. 
"I am a jealous God." With God, as with 
man, the question of veracity is so wrapped 
up with his honor that he cannot be indiffer- 
ent toward those who disbelieve his word. 
But men are prone to locate all their religious 
difficulties outside of themselves, and in so 
doing the divine truthfulness is impeached. 
Unsuccessful seeker, look within for the hin- 
derances to your faith — in that small idol, so 
small as almost to need a microscope to see it ; 
in that indulgence, which you know wars 
against your highest spirituality ; in that other 
gratification, of which you stand in doubt, and 
yet give self and not God the benefit of the 
doubt ; in that slight omission, of which con- 
science once spoke quite clearly, but now with 
a lessening emphasis. Appear before God 
with a perfect willingness to do his will, and 
you will find faith springing up spontaneously 
in your heart. 

Religious unbelief, in all its forms, has not 
an intellectual, but a moral, cause. The diffi- 
culty is not with our faculties, nor with the 
evidences, but with our moral state, our wills, 
our disposition to follow unhesitatingly wher- 
ever the truth leads. 

Let the reader who has asked and received 



Seeking a7id not Finding. 1 07 

not, examine himself in the light of the truths 
set forth in this article, and pray for the il- 
lumining Spirit to reveal the hinderances to 
faith. Then let him surrender all to God for 
the glory of his Son, and expect the baptism 
of fire to purge his heart from all sin. 

" Bend with Thy fires our stubborn will, 
And quicken what the world would chill, 

And homeward call the feet that stray ; 
Virtue's reward and final grace, 
The eternal Vision face to face, 

Spirit of Love ! for these we pray." 



io8 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A BUSINESS MAN ANSWERED. 

/CHRISTIAN BROTHER: There is one 
thing not clear to my mind, and on it I 
wish, briefly, you would give me your views, 
namely, on I John i, 8 : " If we say that we 
have no sin," etc. 

Is there not sin in the nature of every per- 
son, and by walking in constant fellowship 
with Christ it is held in death ; and is not that 
the meaning of Rom. vi, 2 : death to sin, not 
of sin ? Or, is it my privilege to arrive at a 
point in experience where I shall feel, realize, 
and know that there is not only no sin on me, 
but no sin in me? Please do tell me, have 
you reached such an experience? I am a 
business man, and desire the best God has for 
me. Please feed me with the mind and ex- 
perience God has given you on this passage of 
his word. 

Cordially, S. 

My Dear Brother in Christ: I have 
studied I John i, 8, with much care, and have 
always arisen from every investigation content 



A Business Man Answered. 109 

with John Wesley's exposition, namely, that 
the tenth verse explains the eighth : " If we 
say we have not sinned," etc. If any un- 
saved person should say that he had no need 
of the blood of Jesus Christ because he had no 
sin to be forgiven and no depravity to be 
cleansed, he would make God a liar. For God 
asserts that by nature we are all the children 
of wrath, and need not only justification, but 
also sanctification, through faith in the blood 
of Jesus. The statement of the eighth verse 
relates not to one who is cleansed, but to one 
who has not been, and who asserts that he has 
no need of cleansing, either because he imag- 
ines that his nature is naturally pure, or that 
in his justification entire sanctification took 
place. It is the Wesleyan doctrine, also, that 
every perfectly purified soul always needs the 
keeping power of the Sanctifier, that the con- 
tinuance of his purity depends on the indwell- 
ing of the Purifier. In an accommodated sense 
of the term, the blood of Jesus Christ every 
moment cleanses from all sin, not by washing 
away actual defilement, but by preventing its 
polluting contact. In this sense Charles Wes- 
ley sings : — 

" Every moment, Lord, I need 
The merit of thy death." 

That exposition which makes the eighth 
verse assert that they who are cleansed from 



no Mile-Stone Papers. 

all sin in the seventh, are still polluted by sin, 
convicts St. John of downright contradiction 
in the same breath. The laws of interpretation 
require us to harmonize each verse with the 
general trend of the entire epistle, which is 
victory over sin, the grand characteristic of re- 
generate souls, as is seen in chap, iii, 9, 10, and 
entire sanctification from inbred sin, or " all 
unrighteousness," as John describes it in chap, 
i, 10. Thus what you style, after the usage of 
the Plymouth Brethren, " sin in me," or hered- 
itary depravity, has just as perfect an anti- 
dote in the blood of Christ as " sin on me," or 
the guilt of willful and known sin. 

But if, my dear friend, you have been 
schooled in the Calvinian view, that you are 
under obligation to realize in your every act, 
and in your whole character, that ideal of per- 
fection which was attainable by Adam, if he 
had never sinned ; if you believe that God's 
law of absolute holiness requires you now to 
be as perfect as you would have been if your 
spiritual stature had not been dwarfed by your 
own past sins, and radically damaged by the 
sin of your first parents in Eden, then by your 
failure every moment of your life you need 
every moment not only sanctification, but 
justification also. For theologians of this 
school define sin to be a want of conformity 
to the absolute holiness of God — a falling; 



A Business Man Answered. in 

short of the Adamic law given in Paradise. 
Now, whatever your definition of sin, John 
affirms that the blood of Christ cleanses 
from all sin, so long as the soul appropriates 
that blood by simple faith. In the sense, 
therefore, of atoning for unavoidable defects, 
infirmities, inadvertencies, ignorances, and fail- 
ures to realize ideal perfection — if these are all 
imputed to us as sins, we need the constant 
cleansing of the atonement. But if you be- 
lieve that the Gospel substitutes the new law 
of love for the Adamic law, and that man's 
whole duty is summed up in loving God with 
all the heart — that is, with all his present 
crippled powers — your definition of sin will be 
greatly narrowed, and will include only those 
voluntary acts which are not in harmony with 
the love of God. Even then it will be for 
your soul's health, and especially promotive of 
humility, often to hold up by " the shade of 
what you are, the bright ideal of what you 
might have been," and, though you have no 
sense of condemnation while sheltered by the 
blood of sprinkling, daily to pray, " Forgive 
us our debts as we forgive our debtors." 

Now, with respect to what is meant by 
being " dead to sin," I accept Dr. Hodge's 
comment, that it is having no more to do 
with sin than the people buried in the Trin- 
ity Church-yard have to do with the life that 



ii2 Mile-Stone Papers. 

rushes daily along Broadway. If you define 
sin as an act, to be dead to sin is not to do that 
act. In this sense most people are dead to 
the crime of murder. But if you define sin as 
a state of heart out of which acts flow, or tend 
to flow, you will find that there are many 
murderers in the world, for there are many 
who are in the state of hatred to their brother 
man. To be dead to sin as a state of heart is 
not to be in that state. Thus, through the 
sanctification of the Spirit, the believer may 
be dead to pride, avarice, malice, selfish am- 
bition, sensuality, and unbelief, as states of 
heart. He may be lifted above them and out 
of them, and no more feel either their motions 
within or breathe their atmosphere. 

So, my dear brother, you may, by trust in 
Christ, arrive at a point in your experience 
where you will "feel, realize, and know" that 
there is not only no sin on you needing justi- 
fying, but no sin in you, requiring sanctifying 
grace. 

In answer to the question calling for the 
writer's personal experience, I will refer you to 
chapter xxi, part 2. 

Yours, in the abiding Comforter, 

Daniel Steele. 



Repression not Sanctiftcation. 113 



CHAPTER IX. 

REPRESSION NOT SANCTIFICATION. 

TT is the purpose of this chapter to set forth 
several insuperable objections to that defi- 
nition of entire sanctification which makes it 
consist in the power of the Holy Spirit re- 
pressing inbred sin, choking down the old 
man instead of crucifying him till he is stone 
dead. 

I. Our first objection is that it does not 
harmonize with the consciousness of entirely 
sanctified persons. These testify with Arvid 
Gradin to " the highest tranquility, serenity, 
and peace of mind, with a deliverance from 
every fleshly desire, and a cessation of all, 
even inward, sins."* 

We admit that if we are entirely passive in 
sanctification we might not be conscious of 
this repressive force, holding in check our sin- 
ful proclivities. But it is a principle of the 
great scheme of gospel salvation to employ 
the agency of the subject. He is to be a co- 
worker with God. Hence he would be con- 
scious of his share in the work of repression 

* Wesley's "Plain Account." 



ii4 Mile-Stone Papers. 

even if he were not conscious of the work per- 
formed by the Spirit. 

The uniform testimony is to a delightful 
sense of inward purity, the absence of all 
risings of malice, envy, and self-seeking. Now, 
if all these still exist within, but only neutral- 
ized by a superior force crushing them down, 
consciousness must attest to a falsehood when 
she bears witness to entire inward purity. 

2. Lack of a scriptural basis. It is a re- 
markable fact that while the Greek language 
richly abounds in words signifying repression, 
a half score of which occur in the New Tes- 
tament, and are translated by to bind, bruise, 
cast down, conquer, bring into bondage, let, re- 
press, hold fast, hinder, restrain, subdue, put 
down, and take by the throat, yet not one of 
these, ovvexc*)) narex^, kuXvoj, ovyftXeid) kcltcl- 
navo, is used of inbred sin ; but such verbs 
as signify to cleanse, to purify, to mortify 
or kill, to crucify, and to destroy. When 
St. Paul says that he keeps under his body 
and brings it into subjection, he makes no 
allusion to the oap%, the flesh, the carnal mind, 
but to his innocent bodily appetites. In 
Pauline usage body is different from flesh. We 
have diligently sought in both the Old Testa- 
ment and the New for exhortations to seek the 
repression of sin. The uniform command is 
to put away sin, to purify the heart, to purge 



Repression not Sanctification. 115 

out the old leaven, and to seek to be sancti- 
fied throughout soul, body, and spirit. Re- 
pressive power is nowhere ascribed to the 
blood of Christ, but rather purgative efficacy. 
Now, if these verbs, which signify to cleanse, 
wash, crucify, mortify, or make dead, and to 
destroy, are all used in a tropical or metaphor- 
ical sense, it is very evident that the literal 
truth signified is something far stronger than 
repression. It is eradication, extinction of be- 
ing, destruction. 

3. The repressive theory of holiness is out 
of harmony with the Divine purity. Holiness 
in man must mean precisely the same as 
holiness in God, who announces himself as 
holy, and then founds human obligation to 
holiness upon this revealed attribute : " Be ye 
holy, FOR I AM HOLY." Who dares to say 
that God's holiness is different in kind from 
man's holiness, save that the one is original 
and the other is inwrought by the Holy 
Ghost ? 

We know that Mansell, in his " Limits of 
Religious Thought," has carried out the Ham- 
iltonian philosophy of the relativity of human 
knowledge, and his philosophy of nescience in 
regard to the absolute and infinite, to this 
fatal point, that it is possible that we know 
nothing of the real moral attributes of God, 
and that goodness in man may signify an ut- 



n6 Mile-Stone Papers. 

terly different thing from goodness in God.* 
We confess to a lenient feeling toward John 
Stuart Mill, when he says of Mansell's God 
that he cannot worship this unknown and for- 
ever unknowable Being, and that he will go to 
hell first. 

Well does Professor Shedd say : " How can 
a man even know what is meant by justice in 
the Deity, if there is absolutely nothing of the 
same species in his own rational constitution, 
which, if realized in his own character as it is 
in that of God, would make him just as God 
is just ? If there is no part of man's complex 
being upon which he may fall back with the 
certainty of not being mistaken in his judg- 
ments of ethics and religion, then are both 
anchor and anchorage gone, and he is afloat 
upon the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance 



* " It is a fact which experience forces upon us, and which 
it is useless, were it possible, to disguise, that the representation 
of God after the model of the highest morality which we are 
capable of conceiving, is not sufficient to account for all phe- 
nomena exhibited by the course of his natural providence. 
The infliction of physical suffering, the permission of moral 
evil, the adversity of the good, the prosperity of the wicked, 
the crimes of the guilty involving the misery of the innocent 
— these are facts which, no doubt, are reconcilable, we know 
not how, with the infinite goodness of God ; but which 
certainly are not to be explained on the supposition that its 
sole and sufficient type is to be found in the finite goodness of 
man." — Mansell, page 18. 



Rpression not Sanctification. 117 

and skepticism. Even if revelations are made, 
they cannot enter his mind." * 

Who can confidently adore and sincerely 
love a being who may, in the inmost essence 
of his being, be pure malignity in the outward 
guise of benevolence ? Now, if holiness in man 
is the same in kind as holiness in God — and it 
is perilous to deny it — what becomes of the 
repressive theory? 

Are there explosive elements in the Divine 
nature, and is there some outside power hold- 
ing down sinful tendencies in his heart? Or 
is he himself holding them down? Let St. 
John answer: " In him is no darkness" — 
moral evil — " at all." His nature is unmingled 
purity. This must be the pattern of our holi- 
ness. " He that hath this hope in him puri- 
fieth himself, EVEN AS He is PURE." Hence, 
if any one should ask us to insure his admit- 
tance into a holy heaven, into the presence of a 
holy God, with inbred sin in his heart, though 
held down by the Holy Ghost himself, we 
should demand a very large premium ; for the 
risk is very great. In fact, we should decline 
the risk altogether, and send the applicant to 
some other office, for instance, Universalism. 

4. Our next objection to this hypothesis is 
that it confounds the distinction between holi- 
ness and virtue. We never call God virtuous, 

* " Bib. Sacra," vol. xvi, p. 737. 



n8 Mile-Stone Papers. 

nor angels, nor Jesus Christ, nor the spirits of 
the just made perfect, whether in the body or 
out of the body. We do not magnify, but 
rather belittle, the Son of God to ascribe to 
him only virtue. He is holy, harmless, un- 
dented, separate from sinners. What is the 
specific difference between virtue and holiness? 
Repression. Virtue is the triumph of right 
against strong inward tendencies toward the 
opposite. Jesus triumphed over outward 
temptations to sin, and was holy. Mary 
Magdalene by divine grace triumphed over 
strong inward tendencies toward vice, and was 
virtuous. The repressive theory of holiness, 
involving, as it must, the co-working of the 
human soul with the divine Represser, con- 
founds the broad distinction between holiness 
and virtue, and banishes holiness from the 
earth, substituting virtue instead. In fact, we 
do not see any possibility, on this theory, for 
a fallen man ever to become holy in the sense 
of the entire extinction of inbred sin. If this 
is only repressed here it may be only re- 
pressed forever hereafter. If the Holy Spirit 
cannot eradicate original sin now, through 
faith in the blood of Jesus, what assurance 
have we that he can ever entirely sanctify our 
souls? But if by repression is meant the 
right poising of the innocent passions of 
sanctified human nature after the extinction of 



Repression not Sanctijication. 119 

ingratitude, unbelief, malice, self-will, and 
every other characteristic of depraved human 
nature which is sinful per se, we accept it as 
Wesleyan and scriptural. 

The Plymouth Brethren, and some other ad- 
vocates of the repressive theory, include not 
only the innocent appetites, but also the flesh, 
the carnal mind ; and they say that we are not 
to be really dead unto sin, but to reckon our- 
selves dead, making entire sanctification an im- 
puted, and not a real and inward, work. With 
this definition they can earnestly preach entire 
sanctification, that is, completeness in Christ, 
but not the completeness of his work in us ; 
but how a believer in inwrought and inherent 
holiness can preach the repressive theory of en- 
tire sanctification honestly, with no mental 
reservation, is to the writer a great mystery. 
The phrase italicised is an evident contradic- 
tion in terms. 

5. An unanswerable objection to the theory 
of sanctification by repression is found in dem- 
onstrating when sanctification by the destruc- 
tion of depravity takes place. To say that it 
may occur in this life is to abandon this theo- 
ry, and to espouse the Wesleyan ; to say that 
physical death annihilates sin is to discrown 
Jesus as the Saviour to the uttermost ; while 
a sanctification after death involves the papal 
error of purgatory and the favorite doctrine of 



120 Mile-Stone Papers. 

modern Universalism, a second probation mor^ 
favorable to holiness than the first. As the 
only scriptural time of moral purification is 
the present life, it follows that either entire 
sanctification is a real eradication of depraved 
tendency, or, that such uprooting will never take 
place under any dispensation, present, or future. 
Hence, if repression is the only possible sancti- 
fication here, it follows that it is the only pos- 
sible state of holiness hereafter. But against 
this conclusion are the following objections : 
(i) The holiness of God as the model of holi- 
ness in man ; (2) The insecurity of the saved 
even in their heavenly state ; (3) The impos- 
sibility of fullness of joy to a soul devoid of 
real and unmingled purity ; (4) The absence 
of scriptural proofs. 

The advocates of the theory of repression 
urge as an objection to the Wesleyan doctrine 
of the extermination of sin in this life, that this 
puts the soul beyond real temptation. " For," 
say they, " there can be no real temptation to 
a soul which has nothing in its nature respon- 
sive to the solicitation to sin." But this as- 
sumption is too broad. It renders angels in 
probation, Adam in Eden, and Jesus Christ on 
the pinnacle of the temple incapable of real 
temptation. But the fact that some angels 
fell, that Adam sinned, and that the Son of 
God " was in all points tempted like as we 



Repression not Sanctification. 12 1 

are," is a sufficient proof that a holy soul is 
capable of real temptation. But it is said that 
when the reformed drunkard falls away from 
entire sanctification he returns to his cups, the 
reclaimed harlot resumes her moral leprosy, 
and the converted rationalist, cut loose from 
Christ, drifts into his old skepticism. Does 
this not prove that in these entirely sanctified 
persons there were lingering vicious propen- 
sities, held in check by divine grace ? No. It 
proves only this, that entire sanctification may 
annihilate sin without destroying those idio- 
syncrasies in which each person's probation 
lies. The special moral test of one man, by 
the constitution which God fras given him, is 
in his sensual nature, that of another in 
his intellectual difficulties with Christianity. 
Entire sanctification does not change men's 
natural constitutions in these particulars. A 
sanctified Gibbon in falling from grace would 
naturally fall into rationalism, and not into 
servile vices. The sanctified slave in his descent 
from grace to nature would find his master's 
hen-roost a greater test than the question of 
the Christian miracles. 



122 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER X. 

SANCTIFICATION AND ETHICS. 

TT is time that there was a thorough discus- 
sion of the relation of entire sanctification 
to man's moral nature and habits. On no 
other point is there so much need of light, as 
on none other are there more wide-spread and 
damaging errors. It is alleged that Christians 
of the most advanced attainments are not per- 
fectly conscientious, and, moreover, that the 
doctrine of evangelical perfection itself tends 
to divorce morality from religion. To this 
grave charge we feel called upon to respond, 
having long waited for a more competent pen 
to take up the theme. The accusation has 
some apparent grounds on which it rests : — 

1. We admit that there may be hypocritical 
professors, whose lives dishonor the high pro- 
fession of holiness to the Lord, as there may 
be counterfeits of justifying grace. The more 
valuable a coin, the stronger the temptation to 
counterfeit it. In our charity we believe that 
the number of hypocrites purposely wearing 
the mask of Christian perfection is very small. 

2. We fear that there is a larger class of pro- 



Sanctification and Ethics. 123 

fessors who are deceived with respect to their 
actual spiritual state. They have construed an 
extraordinary emotional experience into the 
deep and perfect work of the Sanctifier, and 
have unadvisedly assumed a false position by a 
hasty profession of the highest state of grace 
this side of glory. The defective characters of 
this class of professors are, of course, accredited 
to the doctrine and experience of entire sanc- 
tification. But this is done just as illogically 
as all the persecutions and crimes perpetrated 
by people bearing the name of Christians are 
chargeable to the Gospel of the sinless man of 
Nazareth. Men may call arsenic, wheat flour, 
and manufacture it into bread, and sell it, and 
credit the disastrous consequences to the in- 
nocent wheat, with just as much logical con- 
sistency. 

3. There is an element of moral fallibility in 
all professors of perfect holiness, as there must 
inevitably be in all fallen men so long as they 
live in this world. To elucidate this element 
is the purpose of this chapter. 

The conscience has a twofold efficiency — 
the impulsive and the discriminating power. 
The first is moral sensibility or feeling. In all 
holy beings this impulse toward the right is 
round, full, and complete, a movement of the 
soul along the line of perceived rectitude, with 
no drawbacks, antagonisms, and counter-cur- 



124 Mile-Stone Papers. 

rents within itself. There is a delightful con- 
sciousness of an inward harmony of forces all 
moving in one direction. For this the psalm- 
ist prayed when, distracted by conflicting in- 
ward impulses, he cried out, " Unite my heart 
to fear thy name " — a model petition for all 
believers aspiring to the legacy of Jesus, " My 
peace I give unto you." This peace is not a 
product of nature ; it is a gift. No man can 
completely harmonize the felt antagonism be- 
tween his sense of right and his selfish desires 
and passions, because he cannot, without the 
aid of the Spirit, die unto sin ; nor can he find 
a motive to self-crucifixion till he, with an- 
ointed vision, gazes upon the cross where 
hangs the Son of God, bowing his head in 
death for his salvation. When the Holy Spirit 
unveils to the believer this wonderful sight, 
and he realizes the truth of the words, so often 
on his lips, " For me my Lord is crucified," 
under the magnetism of the cross, all the forces 
of his being begin to flow in one direction. 
The impulsive power of conscience has been 
suddenly reinforced. Right is no longer a dry 
abstraction ; it has found an embodiment in a 
personality the most attractive in the universe. 
He now delights to obey the law, because he 
loves the Lawgiver. His affections have been 
suddenly purified by being withdrawn from 
all unworthy objects, and centered on Jesus 



Sanctification and Ethics. 125 

Christ. His will, the flinty center of his per- 
sonality and the head and front of all his for- 
mer antagonism to perfect righteousness, has 
suddenly been fused into the will of Christ 
under the furnace blasts of his mighty love. 
Says Mr. Fletcher : " Christian perfection ex- 
tends chiefly to the will, which is the capital 
moral power of the soul, leaving the under- 
standing ignorant of ten thousand things, and 
the body dead because of sin." In this sur- 
render and identification of the will with the 
" sweet will of God " — in this interfusion of all 
the currents of the soul in one channel deep 
and wide, ever flowing toward the heart of 
Jesus — is found the first experience of perfect 
freedom. 

" And he hath breathed into ray soul 

A perfect love of Thee, 
A love to lose my will in his, 

And by that loss be free." 

Let us now make use of an illustration bor- 
rowed from the science of mechanics. At 
any point in space, conceive of a knot of forces 
pulling in opposite directions. The result will 
be that the point will move in the direction of 
the greatest force. In the unregenerate this 
force is depravity, and the motion is away 
from God. In the justified that force is love 
to Christ, and the motion is God-ward. But 
in each case the opposing forces may be so 



126 Mile-Stone Papers. 

great as to almost counterbalance the greater 
force, so that the resultant force is feeble, and 
the motion is slow. Now, let all the opposing 
forces in the sinner's soul wheel round into 
line with his depraved inclinations, and he 
rushes with fearful velocity down to perdition, 
like an express train upon a down-grade, with 
no brakes upon the wheels, and a dozen fire- 
men shoveling in the coal. Here you have 
the picture of a sinner abandoned of the Holy 
Spirit, and given over to the delusions he has 
willfully chosen. On the other hand, let all 
the forces in the soul of the justified person 
wheel into line with the dominant force, love 
to God, then the soul mounts swiftly upward, 
like a balloon when the ropes are all cut and 
the sand bags are all cast out. We may now 
better understand what is signified by the 
blending of all the forces of the soul into one 
God-ward impulse. It can be easily seen, 
moreover, that there is a limit to this unifying 
of our internal forces. When the last antag- 
onism is either destroyed or brought into per- 
fect accord with the upward impulse of the 
soul, the unification has become complete. 
This is Christian perfection : perfect love is 
the perfect fulfilling of the law. This is the 
sum and substance of Wesleyanism in respect 
to this doctrine : the sum of our impulses to- 
ward the right and toward God may become 



Sanctification and Ethics. 127 

absolutely complete through divine grace. 
They may daily become stronger, but they 
can never become more than total. We wish 
this distinction between totality and strength 
could be clearly seen and kept in mind. The 
totality of one man's capacity may be a thou- 
sand-fold in strength the total of another's, who 
loves God up to the full measure of his power. 
A thimble may be as full as a hogshead. All 
that I am required to do is to love God with 
the full measure of my present powers, crippled 
and dwarfed by original and actual sin. When 
I do this I am perfect in love in the evangel- 
ical sense — not when I fulfill that ideal moral 
capacity which I should have if I had been the 
sinless offspring of a sinless ancestry. Object- 
ors may demur against this, and stigmatize it 
as neonomianism, the setting up of a new law 
of life in place of the law of perfect obedience 
given to our first parents in Eden and never 
repealed. But we find in the New Testament 
that the law of love is the sum of human duty, 
which absorbs into itself the substance of the 
law of Adamic perfection. 

But let us now examine the second element 
of conscience, the discriminating power, and 
see what relation this sustains to entire sanc- 
tification. Our analysis of this power resolves 
it into a moral intuition, and an act of the 
intellect, or a judgment. The moral intuition, 



128 Mile-Stone Papers. 

which is infallible within the sphere of motives, 
never failing to condemn the wrong motive 
and to approve the right one, deals with the 
abstract in ethics, such, for instance, as the 
duty to love a benefactor, while the intellect is 
employed with the determining of right in the 
concrete, right in specific instances, my duty 
toward this or that man. The moral intuition 
gives us the principles of immutable morality. 
Ask any sane moral intelligence in Christen- 
dom or heathendom, in earth, heaven, or hell, 
whether it is ever right to hate a benefactor, 
and he will be constrained by the clear, in- 
tuitive insight of his own moral nature to an- 
swer : " It is wrong." But most of the moral 
questions which we are called to decide are 
not of the abstract kind; they are concrete, and 
involve specific examination by our power of 
reasoning before the decision can be made. 
They are practical, and not theoretical. They 
all need the help of our intellectual powers, 
our enlightened judgments, to discover their 
bearings and relations, before our moral intu- 
itions can discover their moral character. If 
our intellectual judgments were infallible, our 
moral verdicts would be unerring in every in- 
stance. But, alas ! our intellects are weakened 
and darkened, and they often hand over to our 
moral perception fallacious conclusions for it 
to act upon. 



Sanctification and Ethics. 129 

Does not entire sanctification bring a perfect 
remedy for this sad effect ? Does it not per- 
fectly repair the derangement which sin has 
wrought in the reasoning powers ? Does it 
not make us good logicians, enabling us to de- 
tect sophisms at a glance ? This does not 
seem to be the province of the Sanctifier. 
Some indirect benefit he bestows upon our re- 
flective powers, by banishing the clouds ex- 
haled by the appetites and passions, and greatly 
clarifying the atmosphere in which the intel- 
lectual eye is to be used. But the eye itself 
he does not make perfect, " For now we see 
through a glass darkly; but then, face to face." 
Hence the discriminating power of the holiest 
man's conscience, outside the sphere of motives, 
must be imperfect so long as he dwells in an 
earthly tabernacle. Hence his moral judg- 
ments, and his acts founded on these judg- 
ments, may be condemned by the superior 
judgment of another who makes no profession 
of perfect love to God, or any degree of love 
toward God. He may have better data, and 
a stronger reasoning faculty, and arrive at a 
more correct conclusion, and put forth more 
commendable action in this particular case. 

Here, then, is the broad ground for charity. 
Judge charitably, "as being yourselves also 
in the body." Here, also, is scope for pro- 
gressive sanctification, through a prayerful cult- 



130 Mile-Stone Papers. 

ure of our intellects, attaining more light 
to-day in which to see yesterday's mistakes, 
and avoiding them in the future. Hence the 
duty enjoined in 2 Cor. vii, I, of perfecting holi- 
ness, is a progressive work, realizing, or carry- 
ing into practice, the cleansing from all filthi- 
ness instantaneously wrought within. Thus, 
an eminent apostle of Christian purity kept on 
during a year smoking his cigar and invoking 
upon it the divine blessing as sincerely as he 
did upon his beefsteak. But when his higher 
intelligence showed him the injury which his 
habit was doing to himself and the cause of 
Christ, conscience banished that " superfluity 
of naughtiness " forever from his lips. Here, 
also, is the reason for saying daily, " Forgive 
us our debts." For there is no man, however 
pure, whose increased intelligence may not dis- 
cover in his past conduct acts or omissions not 
in accordance with the standard of perfect right- 
eousness. Even if the moral eye is too dull to 
make such a discovery, the very possibility 
that he is an unconscious transgressor should 
send him to the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, 
exclaiming with Paul, "For I know nothing 
of [against] myself; yet am I not hereby jus- 
tified." 

It is the suggestion of Whewell that no act 
is morally indifferent, and that there seems to 
be a broad field of indifferent acts simply be- 



Sanctification and Ethics. 131 

cause our moral discrimination is not suffi- 
ciently acute to discern the moral element in 
them ; that as this insight of the conscience is 
quickened, this field of acts morally indifferent 
will grow narrow, till at last it will entirely 
disappear. Then there will be discovered a 
moral character in the question : Shall I ride 
or walk ? Shall I read this newspaper or that ? 
Shall I eat this kind of food or that ? Shall I 
wear garments of this color or that ? That 
persons ever attentive to the moral quality of 
even trifling acts may approximate this state 
by the constant exercise of the conscience, 
there is no ground for reasonable doubt. To 
this Paul exhorts when he says : " Whether 
therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, 
do all to the glory of God." A conscience thus 
developed in its impulsive and discriminating 
power by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and 
by a long experience in dealing with the sub- 
tleties of temptation, we think is to be pre- 
ferred to that Adamic perfection which every- 
body is eager to disclaim as altogether too 
high for us to aspire to. We know of many 
Christians of whose continued obedience we 
are more sure than the angels were of Adam's, 
when he walked forth from his Creator's hand, 
a great baby, toddling amid Satanic snares and 
pitfalls. Bishop Butler seems to be right when 
he says that it is impossible for God to create 



132 Mile-Stone Papers. 

a moral being with good habits. " Nor do we 
know," says he, " how far it is possible, in the 
nature of things, that effects should be 
wrought in us at once equivalent to habits, 
that is, what is wrought by use and exercise." 
If, through grace, any of us have become for- 
tified by virtuous habits, let us thank God 
for an estate in one respect, at least, better 
than Adam's when " freshest from the hand 
of God." 

There are several important inferences which 
this discussion suggests : — 

1. That the discovery in any of our acts of a 
want of conformity to the law of holiness, 
made after entire sanctification by our increas- 
ing power of moral discrimination, is by no 
means a proof of inbred sin still lurking with- 
in the soul. The sum total of the inward im- 
pulses may be toward God, and the blood of 
his Son may be cleansing us from all sin. 

2. Doubtless, thousands of believers are fully 
sanctified, but, finding their moral perceptions 
still imperfect, they refuse to give glory to the 
Sanctifier for his great work, and at length fall 
back into their former mixed state of sin and 
holiness, of sinning and repenting. Hence the 
necessity of proper instruction on this point 
by all our religious teachers. In the absence 
of such oral instruction, the best written sub- 
stitute, next to the Bible, is Wesley's " Plain 



Sanctijication and Ethics, 133 

Account of Christian Perfection," a tract cost- 
ing six cents. 

3. We see more clearly the ground for the 
Wesleyan paradox, that entire sanctification is 
both instantaneous and gradual. In the im- 
pulsive power imparted to the conscience it is 
instantaneous ; in the discriminating power of 
the moral sense, through exercise, it is gradual. 
Both are commanded in 2 Cor. vii, 1. 

In the baptism, anointing, and fullness of the 
Spirit, and in the coming of the abiding Com- 
forter, which are terms inclusive of entire sanc- 
tification, his work is instantaneous, as also 
the revelation of Christ in Paul after his justi- 
fication. Gal. i, 15, 16. The prayers for entire 
sanctification imply a distinct work, limited in 
time, because it is to be followed by certain 
effects called fruits. On the other hand, the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews intimates 
that perfection is reached by a process involv- 
ing the element of time in the proper develop- 
ment of the power of moral discrimination. 

" But strong meat belongeth to them that 
are of full age, [perfect,] even those who by 
reason of use [habit] have their senses [moral 
perceptions] exercised to discern both good and 
evil." Heb. v, 14. Here the two words " use " 
and "exercised " imply a gradual sanctification 
in the only department appropriate for it, 
namely, in the power of moral discernment. 



134 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Thus we ground our discussion on the word of 
God. 

Finally, the above reflections may enable us 
to determine what is meant by the unscriptur- 
al expression used by some, " sanctified up to 
knowledge." The great work of the Sanctifier, 
by his powerful and usually instantaneous in- 
working, is to rectify the will, poise the pas- 
sions aright, hold in check all innocent, and 
eradicate all unholy appetites, and to enthrone 
the conscience over a realm in which no rebel 
lurks. 

The unfolding of the moral discernment 
under an ever-increasing intelligence is a work 
which still remains to be done. In view of 
the incompleteness of this work at any giver- 
point, a person may very well say of his life 
and practice, " sanctified up to knowledge." 
But respecting his heart he may say, "sancti- 
fied wholly," throughout the conscious and 
unconscious realm of soul and spirit. For if 
the Holy Spirit witnesses to this work of his, 
he attests according to his own omniscient 
glance, and not according to the imperfect 
self-knowledge of the individual ; " for the 
Spirit searcheth all things." 



Let Go and Trust, 135 



CHAPTER XL 

LET GO AND TRUST. 

TT is an inspiring thought, that we are ad- 
dressing a multitude of readers who would 
know more of Christ. A languid desire is not 
sufficient. You must desire Jesus with an in- 
tensity which will make your soul a glowing 
furnace. You must reach the point where you 
will be willing to sell all, or hold all else cheap 
in comparison with the fullness of love to 
Christ. There are but two steps down into 
the pool which makes whole — consecration and 
trust. Difficulties attend both steps. Some 
are in doubt whether they surrender all to the 
disposal of Christ. To such we say, Consecrate 
all you know, and then all you do not know. 
This includes all your assets. God asks no 
more than this. At this point many fail, 
through fear that they are to become paupers, 
when God means to endow them with untold 
wealth. What, let Christ become my Lord in- 
deed ! Is it safe to give him complete control 
over my heart, to be the sovereign of my will, 
the owner of all my property, while I sink down 
to a mere stewardship under him ! Will he 



136 Mile-Stone Papers. 

not take some cruel advantage of me? Will 
he not command me to hard service ? Will 
not reproaches be heaped upon me, if I avow 
before men and angels that I am wholly 
Christ's? Very likely he will honor you by 
intrusting to you some difficult labor. If you 
go into partnership with him, you must share 
all the reproach which comes upon the firm. 
You are advised beforehand that Jesus is an 
unpopular character in what is called the best 
society. 

" If they have called the master of the house 
Beelzebub, how much more so shall they call 
them of his household ? " " The world will 
hate you, because it hateth me ; but be of good 
cheer, I have overcome the world." Hence 
there can be no perfect consecration without 
an accompanying perfect trust. 

Just here let us whisper in your ear that per- 
fect reliance on Christ is impossible so long as 
you are cherishing your good name as a treas- 
ure more precious than his glory. I think 
that he had ministers of his Gospel especially 
in view when he said, " How can ye believe, 
which receive honor one of another, and seek 
not the honor that cometh from God only?" 
This is not a rebuke for a jealous care of our 
moral standing, since an untarnished name is, 
with preachers, an indispensable condition of 
success, but for a weak truckling to a public 



Let Go and Trust. 137 

opinion, hostile to unadulterated Christian 
truth. They are tempted to temporize, and 
tone down the Gospel to please men on whom 
they think themselves dependent. Reader, 
your reputation is not too good to give to the 
Lord Jesus. Paul's self-surrender included his 
popularity. " If I yet pleased men, I should 
not be the servant of Christ." 

Some teach that consecration must be a per- 
fect and distinct act, preceding faith as a dis- 
tinct act. But we can never surrender to a 
person whom we do not trust. So that faith, 
simple faith, lies at the bottom of every step 
God-ward. We have recently seen a beautiful 
illustration of the need of trust in order to 
complete consecration. A glass-worker makes 
a beautiful, yet exceedingly frail, ornament, and 
brings it to his friend as a gift. He says, " This 
is yours ; it is very delicate, and must be 
touched with the greatest care." 

" But," says the friend, whose hand has been 
outstretched for several minutes, '' why do you 
not let go your grasp and give it to me? " 

" O, because I am afraid that you will take 
hold of it so strongly as to break it, and all my 
labor will be lost," replies the giver. 

" But you say that it is mine ; let it go, then, 
and if it is shattered in the transfer, the loss 
will be mine and not yours." 

If your gift of yourself to Christ is in good 



138 Mile-Stone Papers. 

faith, let yourself go ; and if you break all in 
pieces, you have lost nothing ; it is his loss. 
Perhaps he can make a better use of you, 
thus shattered, than he could with your 
wholeness. In his service a broken heart is a 
thousand times more efficient for good than a 
whole one. 

It is true, also, that far more of consecration 
succeeds the act of perfect faith and realized 
sanctification than precedes it. Under the full 
blaze of the Spirit's illumination we see much 
more to consecrate than we did before. 

" But," says one, " I cannot see God's hand ; 
how, then, can I know that he accepts the of- 
fering of my heart? " You are not required to 
know, but to believe. 

" How can I believe when I feel no change?" 
The ground of your faith must not be your 
feelings, but the word of God. When you 
make a legal tender of yourself to him, it is 
your duty to believe that he accepts you, ac- 
cording to his promise. This is simple faith. 
When it pleases God, he will give to your soul 
a joyful realization of your acceptance. This 
is knowledge. The divine order, both in nature 
and in grace, is faith, the stepping-stone to 
knowledge. 

Professor Morse believed it possible to com- 
municate intelligence by electro-magnetism 
before he knew the fact. His faith led to his 



Let Go and Trust. 139 

knowledge. You must believe that Jesus 
Christ is able to save unto the uttermost, be- 
fore you can " know the exceeding greatness 
of his power to us-wardwho believe." If you 
attempt to reverse the process, you will grope 
in Egyptian darkness evermore. 

If the blessing of conscious completeness in 
Christ, and the abiding Comforter and Sancti- 
fier, is by faith only, why not now ? To-day is 
the day of salvation. Full salvation surrounds 
you like a shoreless ocean. Appropriate to 
your utmost capacity to-day. You will gain 
nothing by waiting. There is no lack for God 
to supplement, and there is no particular in 
which you can improve yourself and make your- 
self more acceptable to him. 

Neither sanctification nor justification is by 
works. Works involve the element of time ; 
but faith says, " Now, this instant, thou, O God, 
wilt receive my offering." 

" But," says doubt, "suppose that I feel just 
the same after I thus believe, what then ? " 

Keep on believing the promise, and insisting that 
God is true. He may delay for days and weeks 
the declaration of your complete acceptance, 
in order to develop and test your faith. The 
longer the delay, if you trust unwaveringly, the 
more marvelous the manifestation of Christ to 
your soul as your complete Saviour, when the 
Comforter takes the things of Christ and shows 



140 Mile-Stone Papers. 

them unto you. The Syrophenician woman 
lost nothing by pressing her suit against chill- 
ing discouragements. Faint not. Just here 
thousands have failed. They did not grasp 
the prize because they did not persistently be- 
lieve. 

Others fail through a subtle legality. They 
trust in their consecration, and not in Jesus 
only. They take a commercial view of the 
matter, and present the offering of their 
hearts as the meritorious ground of receiving 
the fullness of the Spirit. This is a piece of 
folly and presumption, which finds its par- 
allel in the way-side beggar, who insists that 
the act of stretching out his upturned palm 
earns the alms which the passer-by may 
give. 

After you have laid your gift upon the 
altar, look away from the gift, that is now 
God's, toward the skies, whence the fire shall 
come down to consume your sacrifice, in 
token of its acceptance. Thus in all our ap- 
proaches to God there are three requisitions — 
Belief, Faith, Trust. " For he that cometh 
to God must believe that he is, and that he 
is the rewarder of them that diligently seek 
him." 

Others fail because of their seeking the 
gift, and not the Giver. You must desire 
Jesus only. You must pray this prayer: 



Let Go and Trust. 141 

" Lord Jesus, glorify thyself in me." When 
you are seeking for some delicious ecstasy 
you are not seeking to glorify Christ to the 
utmost of your ability. There must be an 
absolute resignation of self and selfish de- 
sires in order to be a perfect believer. You 
must come to the point where the poet's 
words will be the honest expression of your 
soul :— 

" To do, or not to do ; to have, 
Or not to have, I leave to Thee : 

To be or not to be I leave ; 
Thy only will be done in me ! 

All my requests are lost in one, 

1 Father, thy only will be done.' 

" Suffice that for the season past 
Myself in things divine I sought ; 

For comforts cried with eager haste, 
And murmured that I found them not. 

I leave it now to thee alone ; 

' Father, thy only will be done.' 

" Thy gifts I clamor for no more, 

Or selfishly thy grace require 
An evil heart to varnish o'er : 

Jesus, the Giver, I desire, 
After the flesh no longer known : 
' Father, thy only will be done.' 

" Welcome alike the crown or cross, 
Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace, 

Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss, 
Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease, 

Nor life, nor death ; but ever gi-oan, 

' Father, thy only will be done.' " 



142 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE EXECUTIVE OF THE GODHEAD. 

"POR several years our mind has been labor- 
ing to invent some concise expression for 
the sum of all the offices of the Third Person 
of the Trinity in the transformation, sanctifi- 
cation, and habitation of souls who fully be- 
lieve in Christ Jesus. At last Dr. Hodge has 
struck out with his die the very coin which our 
own mint has failed to stamp and contribute 
to the currency of Christian experience and 
theological discussion. "The Holy Ghost is 
the Executive of the Godhead." We telegraph 
our thanks to Princeton. May Dr. Hodge's 
mint continue to pour out its golden coin into 
our religious literature for many years more. 
This clear-cut conception and expression of 
the work of the Spirit is exceedingly beautiful 
because it is indisputably true. Law ema- 
nates from the Father, and mercy and judgment 
are committed to the Son, while the executive 
of both Persons is the ever blessed Spirit. 
Here we have the three departments of gov- 
ernment : the legislative, the judicial, and the 
executive. Through the Holy Spirit the Fa- 



The Executive of the Godhead. 143 

ther and the Son operate on human souls, re- 
proving, regenerating, witnessing and sanctify- 
ing. We now see how a person may honor 
the Father, and in a measure the Son, and yet 
fail of obtaining the highest spiritual grace 
through a failure to honor the Holy Ghost, the 
blessed Comforter; just as a man may show 
all proper respect to the law-making and law- 
interpreting departments of our own govern- 
ment, and secure their action, and then miss 
his purpose at last by ignoring the last link 
necessary to its realization — the executive offi- 
cer, without whose agency statutes and courts 
are ineffectual. We fear that there are many 
Christians who inadvertently fail in their trib- 
ute of respect, faith, and worship to the Holy 
Ghost, regarding him as an impersonal emana- 
tion or influence streaming from God, or as 
only another name for the Father, who can 
just as well without Him reach and trans- 
figure their sin-stained souls through the blood 
of the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the 
world. 

To human reason this looks very plausible. 
But Christian experience, especially in its ad- 
vanced stages, has proved it to be fallacious. 
We must believe in the Holy Ghost as the in- 
dispensable agent in the production of spiritual 
life, both in its incipiency and in its FULLNESS. 
There is a sense in which he is now the most 



144 Mile-Stone Papers. 

important active factor in the production of 
Christian character. The work of the Father 
in the gift of the Son, the work of the Son in 
pouring out his own blood as a sin-offering, 
are completed past acts. But the work of the 
Spirit in each individual believer is incom- 
plete. They very greatly mistake who sup- 
pose that he fully accomplished his mission 
to our world on the day of Pentecost, or, at the 
farthest, when he had inspired the last word 
of the New Testament ; and that he then with- 
drew, leaving the Church under the reign of 
fixed spiritual laws. Such a creed as this chills 
the soul and deadens all the fires of faith and 
love. Let the entire Church come to a full 
realization that the Comforter came to abide, 
and that he is now descending in personal 
pentecosts as certainly and as demonstrably in 
the consciousness of every perfect believer as 
he did in the upper room in Jerusalem : then 
will the glory of the dispensation of the Spirit 
begin to be generally seen, and " the Execu- 
tive of the Godhead " receive fitting honor. 
" To have faith in Christ and not to have faith 
in the Spirit seems to be a great contradiction ; 
yet we submit it for the judgment of candid 
inquirers whether this very contradiction is not 
strikingly exhibited in the case of almost all 
who profess to be followers of Christ. To 
know the Father, we must know the Son ; to 



The Executive of the Godhead. 145 

know Christ, we must know the Spirit." * This 
is our privilege: "Ye shall know him. He 
shall testify of me." We suspect that much 
of the repugnance among good Christian peo- 
ple to an instantaneous sanctification comes 
from a sort of naturalistic view of the king- 
dom of grace left to the operation of fixed laws 
in the absence of the King. They forget that 
the King has left in his stead a personal suc- 
cessor and vicegerent, clothed with omnipo- 
tent power. " The day of Pentecost was a 
pattern day. All the days of this dispensation 
should have been like it, or should have ex- 
ceeded it. But alas ! the Church has fallen 
down to the state in which it was before this 
blessing had been bestowed, and it is necessary 
for us to ask Christ to begin over again. We, 
of course, in respect to knowledge — intellectual 
knowledge of spiritual things — are far in ad- 
vance of the point where the disciples were 
before the Pentecost. But it should be borne 
in mind that when truths have once been fully 
revealed and made a part of orthodoxy, the 
holding of them does not necessarily imply 
any operation of the Spirit of God. We de- 
ceive ourselves, doubtless, in this way, imagin- 
ing that because we have the whole Scriptures, 
and are conversant with all its great truths, the 
Spirit of God is necessarily working in us. We 

* " Love Revealed," George Bowen, 
10 



146 Mile-Stone Papers. 

need a baptism of the Spirit as much as the 
apostles did at the time of Christ's resurrec- 
tion." * That was not a mere dash of rhetoric 
which fell from the pen of John Fletcher, when 
he spoke of the Pentecost as the opening of 
" the kingdom of the Holy Ghost." He has 
the signet ring of our glorified King Jesus, and 
reigns over the family on earth as the Son of 
man reigns over the family above. He has 
not shut himself up as an impersonal force 
in the tomb of uniform law, but he walks 
through the earth, a glorious personality, with 
the keys of divine power attached to his gir- 
dle, and with the rod of empire in his right 
hand. He works miracles in the realm of 
spirit, as did Immanuel in the realm of mat- 
ter. The new Creator of the soul performs a 
greater work than the original Creator of man, 
inasmuch as the former works upon material 
which is capable of an eternal resistance to 
his plastic touch, while in matter there was 
no such antagonism. 

In that sublime formula of worship, the Te 
Deum Laudamus, which has dropped from the 
lips of dying sires to living sons for fifteen 
centuries, there is found this sentence, referring 
to the work of Christ in opening the dispen- 
sation of the Spirit: " When thou hadst over- 
come the sharpness of death, thou didst open 

* " Love Revealed," George Bowen. 



The Executive of the Godhead. 147 

the kingdom of heaven to all believers." To 
make the Church realize the presence of " The 
Executive of the Godhead," there must be 
more praying in the Holy Ghost, more preach- 
ing with the demonstration of the Spirit, more 
singing with the Spirit, and testifying as the 
Spirit giveth utterance, with the attesting fruit 
of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace. There 
must be more faith in the Holy Spirit as the 
greatest gift that man can wish, or that heaven 
can send. We belie his presence when in our 
fruitless lives we present him as a barren tree, 
with no golden fruit to attract and feed hungry 
souls. This poor, blind world, which appre- 
hends only sensible things, physical causes 
and effects, must be lifted up by the lever of 
sanctified character from the low plane of 
naturalism, to apprehend the presence of the 
supernatural on earth, the standing miracle of 
Christianity — the Holy Spirit dwelling in hu- 
man hearts and transfiguring human lives. 
How glorious will be that era when the brief 
credo, " I believe in the Holy Ghost," has de- 
scended from the head into the heart of the 
Church, or has ascended from an intellectual 
assent into assured knowledge. John xiv, 17. 
Then, and not till then, will Jesus, the glori- 
fied Bridegroom, have the entire heart of his 
bride, for then will the Spirit, the Bride- 
groom's looking-glass, fully unveil his love- 



148 Mile-Stone Papers. 

liness to her eyes as the chief among ten thou- 
sand. " He shall glorify me ; for he shall re- 
ceive of mine, and shall show it unto you." 
How cheering the thought that this period of 
intense spiritual illumination and power is not 
fixed by the decree of God in the distant fu- 
ture, but that it may be inaugurated in our 
own day by a simple, all-surrendering faith in 
Christ's promise of the Comforter. The spirit- 
ual hunger of the Church eagerly devours 
every year nearly a million of tracts issued 
from the Willard Tract Repository alone, on 
the fullness of the Spirit as the Comforter and 
Sanctifier. Scores of periodicals on the specialty 
of entire sanctification from sin, not by death, 
but by the Holy Ghost, are springing up in all 
Protestant lands, and even in foreign missions. 
These are indications of the dawn of that re- 
turning day of pentecost, when the Spirit shall 
be poured out in his fullness upon all who 
" know the exceeding greatness of Christ's 
power to us-ward who believe." The eastern 
sky has streaks of light betokening the sun- 
rise of a day of power. Christians of every 
name, lone watchers on the mountain-tops, 
now see the edge of the ascending disk, and 
are shouting to the inhabitants of the dark 
valleys below to awake and arise, and behold 
the splendors of the King of day. 

Reader, the perfect restoration of the reign 



The Executive of the Godhead. 149 

of the Spirit over the Church involves your 
personal co-operation, and the entire consecra- 
tion of your heart ; your victory over the 
world, your crucifixion with Christ, the entire 
cleansing of your heart, and the transforma- 
tion of your body into " a temple of the Holy 
Ghost, the habitation of God through the 
Spirit." Are you ready to be nailed to the 
cross ? By the " you " I mean the old self-life. 

" Come, Holy Spirit ! from the height 
Of heaven send down thy blessed light ! 

Come, Father of the friendless poor ! 
Giver of gifts, and Light of hearts, 
Come with that unction which imparts 

Such consolations as endure. 

"Where thou art, Lord, there is no ill, 
For evil's self thy light can kill : 

O let that light upon us rise ! 
Lord, heal our wounds, and cleanse our stains, 
Fountain of grace ! and with thy rains 

Our barren spirits fertilize." 



150 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ASSURANCE OF PURITY. 

TN one of Father Taylor's inimitable Bethel 
sermons, rinding himself drifting into ab- 
struse metaphysics, he raised his strong hand, 
and, in a stentorian tone called out : " Hard 
down the helm ! I've lost my reckoning ! we're 
in the region of the icebergs." This is the 
peril of the cause of Christian purity to-day. 
The winds of discussion have driven our good 
ship into the polar seas, where she is in danger 
of being frozen in or crushed to atoms. Some 
skillful pilot is needed to seize the helm and 
steer the noble ship into the open sea. Mean- 
while we who are on board must do the best 
we can, with our limited resources, to rescue 
our vessel from impending destruction. The 
enemies of the Wesleyan doctrine of entire 
sanctification as a present attainable experi- 
ence are not content with befogging the nature 
of this distinct work of the Holy Spirit ; they 
boldly deny its subjective proofs, and assert 
that no man can ever know that his heart is 
thoroughly cleansed. Their assertions are two : 
First, that consciousness cannot bear witness 



Assurance of Purity 151 

to perfect inward purity, for that is a quiescent 
state, while consciousness cognizes only activi- 
ties. The second declaration is, that the Holy 
Spirit, because he is the appointed witness of 
adoption, cannot disclose to the soul the 
cleansing which he has wrought through faith 
in Jesus' blood. Let us examine the first as- 
sertion, and see whether it does not prove alto- 
gether too much. Is human free agency a qui- 
escent state, or an activity? If it is answered 
that it is an activity, because the mind is 
always active in its choices, we reply that the 
will is active in the choices which it actually 
makes. But how is it with the counter choice 
of good or evil which it does not make at all? 
Could the will have made this alternate choice ? 
If so, how do you know ? Are you conscious 
of a potency? Are you conscious of some- 
thing which never comes forth into actuality? 
Then you must be conscious of a quiescent 
state, the ability to choose between two oppo- 
site courses. Hence consciousness is the fun- 
damental proof of freedom against the theory 
of necessity. Says sturdy Dr. Samuel John- 
son, " I know that I am free, and that's the end 
of it." Are those who are eager to tear down 
the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification 
willing to employ an instrument which inevi- 
tably subverts the whole structure of the Ar- 
minian theology when in the hands of a pre- 



152 Mile-Stone Papers. 

destinarian? That this is no mere bugbear, 
see what a damaging use the arch-materialist, 
J. Stuart Mill, made of a precisely similar as- 
sumption of Sir W. Hamilton. Hamilton had 
declared that consciousness cognizes only the 
actual and not the possible. In another lect- 
ure he shows that the regulative faculty, or 
the pure reason, rejects the freedom of the will 
as utterly unthinkable, in accordance with his 
" philosophy of the conditioned," wmich is, that 
reason can admit neither the absolute nor the 
infinite. If the will is free, its acts are abso- 
lute ; that is, uncaused. And, on the other 
hand, if its acts are caused, there must be an 
endless chain of causation running beyond 
God's volitions into the infinite. Hamilton 
thus avers that the philosophy of the condi- 
tioned rejects alike freedom and fate, or the 
absolute and infinite. 

But Hamilton nevertheless endeavors to 
cling to freedom, because it is a dictum of con- 
sciousness. After arraying reason and con- 
sciousness in a dead-lock on the question of 
free agency, he announces his belief in liberty 
on the ground of consciousness. But the 
faulty limitation of consciousness to the actual, 
excluding potency did not escape the keen eye 
of the logical Mill. His spear finds this joint 
in Hamilton's coat of mail, and his philosophy 
is pushed into fatalism. For, if Hamilton 



Assurance of Purity. 153 

should tell a willful lie, he never could prove 
from consciousness that he might have told 
the truth, because that ability to speak the 
truth was a quiescent potency, beyond the 
sphere of consciousness. It would be well for 
those who talk so carelessly about conscious- 
ness failing to cognize a quiescent state to 
remember that, though Mill is dead, he has 
plenty of followers, who wish no better fun 
than the easy task of overturning human free- 
dom and responsibility with the lever that the 
opponents of entire sanctification are now put- 
ting into their hands. 

Again, let us see what becomes of the doc- 
trine of original or birth sin, if we admit the the- 
ory that consciousness cognizes only activities. 
Can it be proved that the nature of man is 
corrupt by any appeal to consciousness ? How 
on earth, then, did Paul, or his convicted legal- 
ist, in the seventh chapter of Romans, come 
to have such a piece of information as this, " I 
am carnal ;" not merely do I do wicked deeds, 
but " I am carnal " in my quiescent state, the 
fountain of all action. The law could not 
have been his informant, for it prescribes 
acts, saying, "Do this and live." But by some 
means he becomes aware of the painful fact that 
there is a being of sin back of the doing. Can 
any one tell us how a man becomes convinced 
that his nature in its quiescent state is sinful? 



154 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Here is a dilemma — for this fact is either re- 
vealed by consciousness or by the Holy Ghost. 
If by the former, then consciousness grasps a 
quiescent state ; but if by the Holy Ghost, then 
he gives other testimonies besides the fact of 
pardon and adoption. Which horn do you 
prefer to be gored by? Or will you abandon 
the doctrine of inborn sin, and become Pelagian, 
and say that Adam's sin consists in doing as 
Adam did? We, for our part, advertise the 
public that we prefer this doctrine to the doc- 
trine of innate depravity so deeply ingrained 
in our nature, below the gaze of consciousness, 
that we may never, with all the light of the 
Holy Spirit promised in the Bible, certainly 
know that we are not knaves at the bottom of 
our nature. Our intelligence revolts at the 
thought that a wise and holy God should allow 
beings to be born under his moral government 
and amenable to his law, with no knowledge, 
and no means of knowledge anywhere in the 
universe, of their real character as discerned by 
the all-seeing eye. We are shocked at such a 
conception of God as represents him as holy, 
and hating all the traces and stains of sin, yet 
withholding from man that knowledge of his 
own depravity which is necessary to secure his 
co-operation in his complete purification. We 
must either take this view of God, or admit that 
he has made eyes in our soul by which, under 



Assurance of Purity. 155 

spiritual illumination, we may gaze to the very- 
depths of our sinful nature. If this be true, 
then it follows that consciousness may attest a 
quiescent state, and a believer's intuitions may 
know, by the light of the Holy Ghost, that he 
is cleansed from all inbred sin. 

But the worst of this fallacious philosophy 
of consciousness limited to the sphere of ac- 
tivities remains to be shown. It renders it 
impossible for a man certainly to know that 
he is in a regenerate state. For this is either 
a quiescent or an active state. If it is the 
former, then it can never be cognized by con- 
sciousness, and the witness of our own spirit, 
so much talked about by Wesley, is mere non- 
sense. But if the opponent says that the re- 
generate state is active, since it is the awaken- 
ing of love within the dead soul, then it follows 
that entire sanctification is an intensely active 
state, in which the soul loves God to the full 
extent of its powers. In the Wesleyan the- 
ology perfect love is equivalent to perfect 
purity. If a soul can know that all its forces 
are moving Godward, it can know that self is 
crucified and sin is entirely destroyed. 

Let us now examine the assertion that the 
Holy Spirit is not the witness of complete 
holiness. The first corollary from this doc- 
trine is this : there is no such experience in 
this life. For it is the office of the Holy Spirit 



156 Mile-Stone Papers. 

to hold up the mirror of truth to every soul, 
that he may see his moral visage. Now, if, 
under the illumination of the Spirit, no one 
on earth, looking into the Gospel glass, dis- 
covers that he is depraved, then it follows 
that we cannot prove that depravity exists on 
the footstool of God. If no one perceive that 
he is partially sanctified, then there is no proof 
that there is a regenerate soul on earth. If no 
one in Christendom sees himself in the gospel 
glass complete in Christ Jesus, then it cannot 
be proved that there is a soul entirely sancti- 
fied that is now in the body. It is evident 
that a denial of the subjective proofs amounts 
to a flat denial of the experience. How can a 
thing be known to exist without its proofs ? 

Second. Who is he that knows so much about 
the Holy Ghost that he can confidently set 
metes and bounds to his activities? How 
does he come by this amazing wisdom ? The 
Bible does not set limits to the agency of the 
Spirit. So that if nothing were said in the 
Book of books of a positive character on this 
subject, so broad an inference as the denial of 
the Spirit's testimony to entire sanctification 
would be wholly unwarranted. 

The fact that the Spirit, who purifies, also 
certifies the cleansing, is beautifully illustrated 
by the light which first pencils the photograph 
and then reveals it to the eye. It is first a 



Assurance of Purity. 157 

magical, chemical agent, painting the picture 
in the camera, and then the medium of vision 
to the enraptured beholder. 

Thirdly. But there is positive proof that 
the Spirit does bear this testimony. His very 
name, the Comforter, Monitor, Helper, or 
Teacher, implies this. What is the saddest 
fact in the consciousness of the regenerate, 
but the fact of lingering carnality? What 
greater comfort than the assured extermina- 
tion of that carnality? In 1 John ii, 20, 27, 
we are informed that " we have an unction 
from the Holy One, and know all things. " 
Let us take out of the " all " scientific and 
philosophical knowledge, and all the dogmatic 
truths authentically communicated by inspira- 
tion, and we have a residuum of truth relating 
to our personal standing before God and his 
law ; truth which another can never communi- 
cate, for " ye need not that any should teach 
you." To say that this anointing teaches 
every thing but the all-important fact of the 
extermination of inbred sin is to .render his 
mission useless and his message nugatory. 

But in 1 Cor. ii, 12, we have a still more 
comprehensive statement of the teachings of 
the Spirit. " Now we have received, not the 
spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of 
God, that we might know the things freely 
given to us of God." The things is in the 



158 Mile-Stone Papers. 

plural number, and includes all the operations 
of the Sanctifier. If, then, it is his office to 
sanctify, it is his mission also to certify that 
great and glorious work to the soul of the be- 
liever. This is Mr. Wesley's strong proof- 
text, which 'the flippant opposers in his age 
and in ours have never been able to disprove. 
In conclusion, we would recommend the cap- 
tious opposers of a conscious salvation from 
inbred sin to study the context, and see 
whether they may not be unconsciously rank- 
ing themselves among " natural " men, to 
whom the things of the Spirit are " foolish- 
ness." For the cavils and objections of this 
class of writers indicate a lack of spiritual 
insight, which can be removed by the persistent 
utterance of the prayer which is found in the 
ordination service : — 

" Enable with perpetual light 
The dullness of our blinded sight." 



A polios — Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 159 



CHAPTER XIV. 

APOLLOS — THE PULPIT TAUGHT BY THE PEW. 

A POLLOS flashes like a splendid meteor 
■^ through the Acts of the Apostles, and is 
gone. So brief is the view that we are liable to 
be mistaken respecting this character. We be- 
lieve that the common conception of him is 
that he knew nothing of the Gospel of Christ, 
its supernatural origin, the miracles, teachings, 
character, death, and resurrection of Jesus of 
Nazareth, but that in the apostolic age he 
was flaming with zeal for John's baptism, a 
dispensation which had long since been 
brought to an end by the stroke of the heads- 
man's ax, in the Castle of Machaerus. He is 
viewed as the Rip van Winkle of the apostolic 
Church, who woke up from his long sleep, 
and stood up at noon-day and bade the people 
watch for the coming sunrise. This popular 
notion of Apollos suggests the story of the 
mythical old man in the backwoods of Ameri- 
ca, who a half century after the American 
Revolution had not heard of that event, and 
was still praying for King George the Third. 
It is the purpose of this paper to clear away 



160 Mile-Stone Papers. 

these misconceptions, and to contribute some- 
what to a better understanding of this dis- 
tinguished preacher at the time when he 
suddenly bursts into Church history. Let us, 
then, critically examine the first brief mention 
made of him in Acts xviii, 24-28. His being 
" born at Alexandria," the great seat of learn- 
ing and philosophy, at a short distance from 
Palestine, is a circumstance favorable to a 
knowledge of the facts of Christ's life. For 
the people of that city were so much interested 
in the religion of their Jewish neighbors that 
they had translated the Old Testament into 
the Greek language. Also many Alexandrians 
were Jews in constant intercourse with the 
fatherland. From the fact that he was 
" mighty in the Scriptures " we infer that he 
had a theme which afforded a scope for the 
display of his scriptural knowledge. The bap- 
tism of John is altogether too narrow for any 
such exhibition", but a knowledge of the facts 
of the life of Jesus would enable him to show 
that Moses in the Law speaks of him, and 
that to him " give all the prophets witness." 

The phrase, " well instructed," may be bet- 
ter rendered by transferring the Greek word, 
" catechised," which literally signifies to sound 
a thing into one's ears by the living teacher. 
" In the way of the Lord " is an abbreviation 
for " the way of the Lord Jesus Christ." This 



Apollos —Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 161 

is the most common signification of " the 
Lord " in the New Testament. This phrase, 
" fervent in the spirit," has been sadly dark- 
ened by the failure to write Spirit with a capi- 
tal. Says Bengel : " He had the Spirit, not in 
that special way which is treated of in chap- 
ter xix, 6, but in the ordinary way." He 
was therefore " boiling with the Spirit," the 
author of all real piety, in all dispensations, 
whether of Gentilism, Patriarchism, or Juda- 
ism. Hence, having the Holy Ghost, not in 
his official character as the Paraclete, but in 
his essential presence and inworking, Apollos 
was in a state of grace and was justified before 
God. " And taught diligently." By referring 
to the 26th verse, the original of the adverb 
" diligently " will be found in the comparative 
degree, properly rendered " perfectly." See 
also the same word, rendered " perfectly " in 
Acts xxiii, 15, 20, and 1 Thess. v, 2, and " per- 
fect " in Luke i, 3, and Acts xxiv, 22. 

We now come to a passage which somebody 
has tinkered. The Greek of the best manu- 
scripts, as is shown by Alford, is not " the things 
of the Lord," as in King James' version, but 
" the things of Jesus." The motive for this 
tampering with the text is very obvious. 
Some one, thinking that the correct words, 
" things of Jesus," did not square Very well 
with ''knowing only the baptism of John," 
11 



162 Mile-Stone Papers. 

has endeavored to produce a harmony by al- 
tering " Jesus " to the indefinite " Lord," which 
may be interpreted as signifying, " God the 
Father." Alford restores " Jesus " to the text. 
Thus we have the true reading, " and taught 
perfectly the things of Jesus, knowing only the 
baptism of John" 

How to harmonize these clauses is the prob- 
lem of the commentators. Says Alford, " He 
knew and taught accurately the facts respect- 
ing Jesus, but of the consequences of that which 
he taught, all of which may be summed up in 
the doctrine of Christian baptism, he had no 
idea." Bengel thinks that " he had not heard 
concerning the death and resurrection of 
Christ, and concerning the Paraclete." Still 
nearer does Olshausen come to the truth. 
" He had learned nothing regarding the glori- 
fication and exaltation of Christ in his resur- 
rection and ascension, nor regarding the gift of 
the Holy Ghost as the consequence of his 
elevation." But in our opinion Meyer lets the 
light most fully into this difficult question, 
when he says that " it is not meant that he 
was absolutely ignorant of the fact of there 
being such a thing as Christian baptism, but 
ignorant of its being any thing different from 
that of John; he knew, or recognized in 
tism only that which the baptism of John was- 
a sign of repentance!' 



Apollos — Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 163 

The sentence italicized is the key to the 
whole difficulty. He was acquainted with all 
the facts of Christ's earthly life, Christian bap- 
tism included, but had failed to see that, while 
John's baptism symbolized the negative part 
of sanctification, the putting away of sin, or 
death unto sin, Christian baptism prefigures 
the positive part, the fullness of the Divine life 
through the baptism of the Holy Ghost. 
Thus identifying the symbolical import of the 
two baptisms through imperfect instruction, 
he may have been baptized in the name of the 
Lord Jesus, and have experienced no spiritual 
change, no incoming of the Comforter, through 
his lack of faith. For there is no account of 
his subsequent baptism, though his hearers in 
Ephesus, who were in the same condition, 
were baptized under the direction of Paul. 

The great defect in Apollos, therefore, was in 
not having a correct view of the extent of 
gospel salvation through the baptism and in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the office of the 
Comforter and Sanctifier, and in the absence 
of the experience of this Spirit-baptism. He 
was in just the spiritual state in which many 
eloquent preachers are found in modern times. 
In a sense they are spiritual men, and some of 
them are " fervent in the Spirit," in his ordi- 
nary operation, but they have no experience of 
that instantaneous and mighty anointing of 



164 Mile-Stone Papers. 

soul, that distinct and specific personal pente- 
cost, the crowning work of Jesus as foreseen 
by John, a He shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire." 

Fletcher says that the ordinary work of the 
Spirit is a gentle distilling like the dew ; the 
extraordinary is the outpouring of a mighty 
shower. Apollos had been moistened by the 
dew, but not drenched by the shower. Two 
of his hearers who were enjoying the shower 
in their own hearts quickly detected the dry- 
ness of the preaching of their Alexandrian 
pastor, suspected the cause, and attempted the 
cure. Their mode of proceeding is a model 
for all those laymen whose experience has 
gone, beyond that of their preacher. Instead 
of hinting his defective experience in their 
exhortations and prayers, they, with a delicate 
regard for the feelings of their religious teach- 
er, took him aside, and privately supplied what 
was lacking in his doctrine, and opened up to 
his willing feet that " large place " into which 
the glorified Head of the Church invited him 
to come and abide. We believe that this is 
what Aquila and Priscilla did when " they 
took Apollos unto them," and expounded 
unto him the way of God more perfectly. 
Their instruction was not in vain. Soon we 
find Apollos in Achaia, where he " helped 
them much which had believed through 



Apollos — Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 165 

grace." Having been for a long time desti- 
tute of the fullness of the Spirit, and having, 
through the help of others, found full salvation, 
probably after leaving Ephesus, he is now 
powerfully drawn in sympathy toward imper- 
fect believers on whom only the dew-drops dis- 
till, and he leads them out where the cloud 
full of rain is pouring down its ceaseless show- 
er. The vocation of Apollos henceforth is not 
to " plant," but to " water " the believing 
souls whom Paul gathers into Churches. 
Aquila and Priscilla had put the full watering- 
pot into his hand. With his deeper experi- 
ence his ministry had assumed a deeper sig- 
nificance and a higher joy. Then could he 
sing with Charles Wesley : — 

" In a rapture of joy 

My life I employ, 
The God of my life to proclaim ; 

'Tis worth living for this. 

To administer bliss 
And salvation in Jesus's name." 

Our conclusions respecting Apollos are 
strongly confirmed by an examination of his 
hearers in Ephesus before his spiritual en- 
largement, for he left immediately after the 
private interview with Aquila and his wife. 
Paul was the next stationed preacher in Ephe- 
sus. He found twelve Christians. That they 
were genuine Christians is shown first by the 



1 66 Mile-Stone Papers. 

fact that they are styled disciples. This term 
standing alone is always used in the Acts and 
in the Epistles as a synonym for Christians. 
Look in your concordances, and see. Sec- 
ondly, the word " believe/' which is predicated 
of them in Acts xix, 2 : " Have ye received the 
Holy Ghost since ye believed?" is only used 
of saving faith in Jesus Christ. Look in your 
concordances again, and see how numerous the 
passages like these, " He that believeth shall 
be saved," " Unto us who believe he is pre- 
cious." You will then be prepared to justify 
the assertion of Alford, that " to believe," when 
no object is added, " can bear no meaning but 
that of believing on the Lord Jesus." 

But how could they be Christians, in utter 
ignorance of the Holy Ghost? If they were 
instructed only in John's baptism they must 
have heard of the Holy Spirit, for John 
pointed his disciples to him " who should 
baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire." 
If they were believers in Moses, they must 
have heard of the Spirit of God. If they 
had read the Hebrew Psalms, they would 
have found this expression, "Take not thy 
Holy Spirit from me." Therefore we conclude 
with Bengel, that a strict construction must 
not be put upon the words, " We have not so 
much as heard whether there be any Holy 
Ghost," but rather this, " Not even have we 



Apollos — Pulpit Taught by the Pew. 167 

heard this, that there are others who receive 
him." Therefore what they were ignorant of 
was the effusion of the Holy Spirit peculiar to 
the New Testament. Thus we find the old 
adage true, " Like priest, like people." They 
were in exactly the same state of experience 
with their former pastor, Apollos. They were 
in the ante-pentecostal state years after the 
Pentecost, as many Christians are to-day, cent- 
uries after the effusion of the Spirit. It is for 
the purpose of demonstrating the possibility 
of a fact so anomalous that we have conducted 
our readers through this exegesis. We be- 
lieve that all candid readers, especially all 
Greek scholars, will vindicate us from the 
charge of " handling the word of God deceit- 
fully." 

If our inference from this passage is correct, 
then it follows that when penitents are justified 
through faith in Jesus Christ, they do not in 
the Pauline sense " receive the Holy Ghost," 
in the peculiar office of the Paraclete, though 
they may receive the witness of the Spirit. It 
follows, moreover, that it is the duty of all who 
have been filled with the Spirit, whether 
preachers or laity, to testify of this great salva- 
tion, and to use all appropriate efforts to lead 
others, especially preachers of the word, into 
the enjoyment of this grace. 

So far as our observation goes, we believe 



1 68 Mile-Stone Papers. 

that in many of our modern Churches the 
laity are, in respect to this experience, like 
Aquila and Priscilla, often in advance of their 
cultured and eloquent ministers. 

Says Bengel : " He who knows Jesus Christ 
can teach those powerful in the Scripture; 
and the latter are readily taught by the for- 
mer." 

" Shall we the Spirit's course restrain, 

Or quench the heavenly fire ? 
Let God his messengers ordain, 

And whom he will inspire. 
Blow as he list, the Spirit's choice 

Of instruments we bless ; 
We will, if Christ be preached, rejoice, 

And wish the word success." 



Jason and the Sirens. 169 



CHAPTER XV. 

JASON AND THE SIRENS. — VICTORY IN TEMP- 
TATION. 

TT is a great mistake to suppose that any- 
state of grace this side of glory is entirely 
exempt from temptation. So long as the soul 
is in probation it will be tested by solicita- 
tions to sin. But there is a state in which we 
may, with St. Paul, always triumph. There 
are two different ways of resisting temptation, 
one of which is sometimes successful, and the 
other is always infallible. 

The first method is by the direct antagonism 
of sin through the exercise of the will-power. 
If this power is strong, victory ensues ; but if 
it be weak, defeat follows. The other method 
is in the indirect resistance of temptation by 
the complete renovation of our own desires 
and pleasures. For the chief power of temp- 
tation lies in our own hearts, in our appetency 
for sinful delights. The extinction of that 
appetite breaks the power of every solicitation 
to moral evil. But since we are created with 
the desire for happiness imbedded in our very 
natures, the downward gravitation of our souls 
toward sinful pleasures can be overcome only 



170 Mile-Stone Papers. 

by bringing heaven so near by faith as to 
cause a superior upward gravitation, by what 
Dr. Chalmers vigorously styles " the expulsive 
power of a new affection." Hence, the love 
of God fully shed abroad in the heart by the 
Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, works a thorough 
revolution in our delights. Spiritual joys have 
now become far more appetizing than sensual 
gratifications. 

"Temptations lose their power, 
When Thou art nigh." 

The period of Christian life before this new 
taste for spiritual joys has become completely 
dominant and controlling is the period of the 
greatest peril. It was before a relish for the 
manna had become ineradicably fixed in the 
Israelites that they " fell a-lusting " for the 
flesh pots of Egypt, and visions of " leeks, and 
onions, and garlic," made their mouths water 
from intense longing. During the critical 
period in which Jehovah was attempting the 
transformation of this servile gang of brick- 
makers into a nation of freemen, they fell be- 
fore the power of their uneradicated Egyptian 
appetites. Let every unsanctified Christian 
remember that these things are written as an 
ensample of the shipwreck to which he is es- 
pecially exposed. In the perilous hour of trial 
his will-power may bow like a reed before the 



Jason and the Sirens. 171 

impetuous torrent of fleshly desires, and he 
become a castaway. The only safety is in the 
opening of a new fountain of joys within the 
heart, so sweet, so full and so lasting as to 
extinguish utterly all base delights. Let me 
illustrate. In the days of our boyhood, when 
a barrel of cider in the cellar of the farmer was 
deemed a necessary of life, one of our neigh- 
bors complained that, in consequence of the 
bibulous propensity of some one in his house, 
he could keep no cider in his cellar. A friend 
well versed in human nature suggested Frank- 
lin's remedy as a sure cure of the evil. The 
complaining farmer was told that his cider 
would remain untouched if he would place a 
barrel of wine beside it. Here see an unfail- 
ing prescription for the soul prone toward the 
shallow, green-scummed pools of sensual grat- 
ification. Let him by faith place nearer to 
his heart the wine of God, the joy of the Holy 
Spirit, the Comforter, having tasted which he 
will never thirst again for worldly pleasures. 

A classical illustration of the two ways of 
resisting temptation is found among the beau- 
tiful myths that cloud the dawn of Grecian 
history. In the wanderings of Ulysses after 
the taking of Troy, the wind drove his ship 
near to the island of the Sirens, somewhere near 
the west coast of Italy. These enchantresses 
were fabled to have the power of charming by 



172 Mile-Stone Papers. 

their songs any one who heard them, so that 
he died in an ecstasy of delight. When the 
ship of Ulysses approached these deadly 
charmers, sitting on the lovely beach endeavor- 
ing to lure him and his crew to destruction, 
he filled the ears of his companions with wax, 
and with a rope tide himself to the mast, until 
he was so far off that he could no longer hear 
their song. By this painful process they 
escaped. 

But when the Argonauts, in pursuit of the 
golden fleece, passed by the Sirens singing 
with entrancing sweetness, Jason, instead of 
binding himself to the mast and stuffing the 
ears of his men with wax, commanded Or- 
pheus, who was on board the ship, to strike 
his lyre. His song so surpassed in sweetness 
that of the charmers, that their music seemed 
harsh discord. The Sirens, seeing them sail 
by unmoved, threw themselves into the sea 
and were metamorphosed into rocks. They 
had been conquered with their own weapons. 
Melody had surpassed melody. Here is set 
forth the secret of the Christian's triumph. 
Joy must conquer joy. The joy of the Holy 
Ghost in the heart must surpass all the pleas- 
ures of sense. When all heaven is warbling 
in the believer's ear, the whispers of the 
tempter grate upon the purified sensibilities as 
saw-filing rasps the nerves. 



Jason and the Sirens. 173 

" The joy of the Lord is your strength " to 
resist sin as well as to endure toil. Fullness of 
joy is the Christian's impervious shield. Christ 
has such a shield for every believer. " Ask 
and receive, that your joy may be full." Some 
people, by affecting contempt for joy, proclaim 
themselves wiser than the Master. The truth 
is that no soul is entrenched in its bomb-proof 
till it is filled with God, with love, with joy. 
For these three are a trinity in unity. Every 
soul having the fullness of God has the 
fullness of joy; not always the gladness of 
realization, ecstatic and rapturous, but " the 
joy of faith " — a high serene tranquillity often 
bursting out into exultation because of the 
gladsome emotions actually realized. Phil, 
i, 25. The kingdom of God is not fully set 
up in the soul till the joy of the Holy Ghost 
crowns both righteousness, or justification, and 
peace. Rom. xiv, 17. Hence, every young 
convert should be urged to advance imme- 
diately and rapidly beyond the point of irk- 
someness of service, into the region of un- 
utterable gladness in Jesus. This is the 
region of perfect consecration, full trust, entire 
sanctification, and the fullness of the Spirit 
abiding within the soul. The question why so 
many converts backslide is here answered. 
Their joy is evanescent. " Anon they receive 
the word with joy." They flourish so long as 



1/4 Mile-Stone Papers. 

their short-lived, superficial joy continues, and 
then they wither away. The remedy is found 
in the abiding Comforter promised by Jesus, 
and appropriated by a distinctive faith after 
justification. The rock was not smitten until 
Egypt was left behind. Gladness in Jesus has 
an important place in the economy of salva- 
tion. It conserves fidelity and conquers 
Satan. The Orphean lyre is a better safe- 
guard than the Ulyssean wax. Lashing one's 
self to the mast may be heroic, but it is not 
the highest style of heroism. Jason acted a 
braver and a wiser part than Ulysses. To be 
sure, it is better to incapacitate one's self for 
sin than to be cast into hell " having two hands 
and two feet." But it is still better to present 
the whole body a living sacrifice, and, with all 
our faculties unimpaired and free, to love the 
Lord with all the strength. 

In conclusion, while we urge all to a joyful 
experience, we caution all against seeking joy 
instead of Jesus, the Joy-Giver. 

" Thee let me drink, and thirst no more 

For drops of finite happiness ! 
Spring up, O Well, in heavenly power, 

In streams of pure perennial peace ; 
In joy which none can take away, 
In life which shall forever stay." 



Profession and Confession. 175 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PROFESSION AND CONFESSION. 

'"PHERE is in the Christian Church a strong 
aversion to a profession of entire sanctifi- 
cation. It is easy to ascribe this to the de- 
pravity still lingering in Christian hearts, to 
prejudice, or to a misapprehension of the sub- 
ject. All of those things aggravate the evil, 
but they are not an exhaustive statement of 
the causes. From the whole tenor of the 
Scriptures Christians derive the impression 
that there are only two things to be confessed 
— our sins and our Saviour. 

Jesus is to be confessed by the penitent 
seeker as a needed Saviour. This first confes- 
sion is usually made by coming to an inquiry 
meeting or an altar, or rising for prayers. 
Jesus is to be confessed as a pardoning Saviour. 
This is deemed a vital point. Every skillful 
pastor urges on the convert this confession by 
baptism and the Lord's Supper, and by a con- 
stant declaration by the tongue of Christ's for- 
giving grace. Jesus, as a complete Saviour, able 
to save to the uttermost from fear and doubt 
and indwelling sin, is to be confessed to his 



176 Mile-Stone Papers. 

honor, to the praise of the Holy Ghost, the 
efficient agent, and to the glory of the Father. 
Christ should be the direct object of our con- 
fessions, and not self as justified, nor self as 
cleansed, nor self as filled with the Holy Ghost. 
St. Paul, to be sure, does seem to put self first 
in his profession of perfected holiness, but 
he puts self first as nailed to the cross, and 
then he magnifies Christ, the inward, living 
and almighty Saviour. " I am crucified with 
Christ ; it is no longer I that live, but Christ 
liveth in me." There is needless offense given 
when we profess sanctification instead of hum- 
bly confessing Christ, " made unto us sanctifi- 
cation." 

If our peace is as the Amazon, deep, broad, 
and continuous in its flow, it is a great mistake 
to isolate it from its source, and in our testi- 
mony to eclipse Christ, by thrusting our emo- 
tions between the hearers and " the light of 
the world." Thus did not St. Paul, who, 
though caught up into Paradise and hearing 
heavenly things unlawful (impossible) to utter, 
never forgot to say of Jesus, " he is our peace," 
he is " the Lord of peace." 

The separation of the gift from the Giver, 
and the exaltation of the gift of purity while 
leaving the Refiner in the shade, is the fruitful 
cause of much of the distaste for professions 
of holiness among good people. Moreover, 



Profession and Confession. 177 

there is lurking in the words " profess " and 
" profession " a meaning of pretense, of blow- 
ing one's own trumpet, which is not found in 
the word " confess" and " confession." It is 
unfortunate that the words " profess " and 
" profession," as relating to our acknowledg- 
ment of Christ, were not in the New Testament 
translated " confess " and " confession," since 
there is but one set of words in the original 
Greek. 

To the confession of Christ there can be none 
but captious objections: Christ needed, Christ 
found, Christ saving from sin " unto the utter- 
most," Christ dwelling within, Christ keeping 
from falling, Christ the bread of life — not a crust, 
but the " whole loaf," as Rutherford confesses — 
Christ the well of water in the heart, and Christ 
a perfectly satisfying portion. But why con- 
fess Christ a perfect Saviour? For the same 
reason that he is to be confessed at all. If he 
is enthroned within and reigns after all his foes 
are expelled, let him have the laurels of a con- 
queror wreathing his brow. This is especially 
obligatory, since the devil has loudly professed 
that he has so intrenched himself in the human 
soul that he is inexpugnable till death's power 
is added to that of the Son of God. Why not 
let people find out by our lives instead of our 
lips that Christ is made unto us sanctification? 
Why not by the same method let the world 
12 



178 Mile-Stone Papers. 

discover your apprehension of the forgiving 
Christ? The answer in both cases is, that 
Christ himself has appointed the instrument 
by which he shall be confessed, namely, the 
mouth, while the life confirms what the lips 
utter. In this use of the mouth lies the test 
of our loyalty. The more we find in Christ, 
the higher this test becomes. There is a phi- 
losophy of confession which Jesus did not see 
fit to develop. He grounded this require- 
ment on his own authority, and not on our dis- 
covery of his reasons. Nevertheless, he had 
reasons which constitute the philosophy of 
confession. 

His Messiahship, his kingship, must be ac- 
knowledged. This can no more be done by 
an upright life than such a life in time of re- 
bellion can evince loyalty to the reigning mon- 
arch with no act or word indicative of such 
loyalty. Since there were many moral men 
adhering to the Federal government, and many 
supporting the Confederate States, a mute, 
upright life was not sufficient to determine a 
man's political principles. Jesus was not satis- 
fied with men's good and beautiful lives. He 
was every-where propounding the question : 
" What think you of Christ ? Who do men 
say that I, the Son of Man, am?" He went 
about seeking recognition, hungering to be ac- 
knowledged in his true character and claims. 



Profession and Confession. 179 

" If any man confess me before men, him will 
I confess before my Father." 

To the unbelieving world he is dead and 
buried, and, like Cesar, rules the world only 
through history, through the train of influ- 
ences originated by him, and through the 
words left behind him, and not by his personal 
presence. Yet he promised to be present with 
believers : " Lo, I am with you always. I will 
not only be present, but I will manifest myself 
unto you." This prophecy is false, if there are 
no witnesses of this spiritual manifestation, no 
attestation of the incoming of the personal 
Christ into consciousness, addressing himself 
to our spiritual perception. A good outward 
life cannot convince the world of this fact. 
Morality can be exemplified on the plane of 
nature. Thousands are outwardly as pure 
as Christians while utterly ignoring Christ's 
claims. But has the risen Jesus made himself 
known to any soul by infallible proofs? Bring 
him to the witness stand. He has important 
testimony. Let him open his lips and give to 
the world proof that its Saviour is invisibly 
yet gloriously present, that he gives victory 
over sin, that he is the soul's sanctification, 
peace, and joy. " The inner life," says Lacor- 
daire, " is the whole man, and forms all the 
worth of man. Happily, and thanks to God, 
there are orifices through which our inner life 



180 Mile-Stone Papers. 

constantly escapes, and the soul, like the blood, 
hath its pores. The mouth is the chief and 
foremost of these channels which lead the soul 
out of its invisible sanctuary ; it is by speech 
that man communicates the secret converse 
which is his real life." Can any one testify of 
an indwelling Christ manifesting himself in the 
soul's inner life as the purifier of silver? Let 
him speak and confound an infidel world while 
he confirms the promise of Christ to make his 
abode with those who love him. Let him 
speak, for there are thousands groaning over 
the dross discovered within, who are longing 
to find one able to refine them instantaneously 
in the consuming fire of his love, without the 
slow fire of adversity here, or of purgatory 
hereafter. Let him, by his testimony, make 
known to an unbelieving Church " the exceed- 
ing greatness of Christ's power to us-ward who 
believe." If the great Physician has thorough- 
ly healed any soul, let him stand forth so that 
a world full of paralytics may see him, and be 
induced to apply to him, and be made " every 
whit whole." 

Therefore all the motives of gratitude to 
Jesus, and of benefaction to men, conspire to 
impel advanced believers to seize a speaking- 
trumpet, mount the house-top, and proclaim 
to a blind world the greatness of its Redeemer, 
and to a despairing Church the perfectness of 



Profession and Confession. 181 

her Saviour, who has demonstrated in their 
consciousness that he " is able to save them 
unto the uttermost who come unto God by 
him." So long as Jesus, the adorable Son of 
God, is the object of our confession, we cannot 
be excessive, for he is the object of eternal con- 
fession in heaven. " Worthy is the Lamb that 
was slain to receive power, and riches, and 
wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, 
and blessing. 

" Jesus is God ! If on the earth 

This blessed faith decays, 
More tender must our love become 

More plentiful our praise. 
We are not angels, but we may 

Down in earth's corners kneel, 
And multiply sweet acts of love, 

And murmur what we feel." 

— Faber. 



1 82 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

CHRIST OUR SENTINEL. 

"TVONT you know that a hat-full of wind 
would have sent you straight to the bot- 
tom?" said the captain of a war-vessel to an 
old slave, who had ventured from Charleston, 
in a leaky skiff, risking life for liberty. " De 
good Lord habn't brought dis chile so far to- 
ward freedom to send him to de bottom ob de 
sea, nohow," said the sable believer in special 
providences, as he stepped from his sinking 
boat to the deck of the blockading ship, amid 
the cheers of the patriotic marines. He had 
faith in the keeping power of God. Deliver- 
ances past laid stronger foundations for faith 
in deliverances to come. This principle under- 
lies St. Paul's faith when he exclaims, " I know 
whom I have trusted, and am persuaded that 
he is able to keep my deposit for that day."* 
Past ventures of his soul upon the keeping 
power of his omnipotent Saviour had inten- 
sified his trust in him for still greater things, all 
along the future, up to the very descent of the 
Judge of the quick and the dead. The phil- 
osophic assumption on which this faith rests 

* Dean Alford's version. 



Christ our Sentinel. 183 

is that like causes always produce like effects. 
Confidence in the stability of the physical 
world keeps us from fear as we dash through 
the sky at break-neck speed on this planet 
which we call earth, and which is bowling 
along its orbit with perilous velocity. This faith 
in nature, or rather in Him who presides over 
nature, is not only the charm which allays our 
fears of future ill, but it is the spring of all our 
activity and the secret of all our success in 
attaining material good. 

When will Christians learn that " the God of 
all grace " affords in his recorded promises just 
as stable a ground of trust as the God of na- 
ture? Yea, more stable, inasmuch as physical 
laws, in the case of miracles, have been occa- 
sionally suspended for the attainment of spirit- 
ual ends. Thus God shows that the kingdom 
of grace is superior to the kingdom of nature. 
The laws of the former were never, and never 
will be, suspended to attain the inferior ends 
of the latter. Here is the basis for even a 
firmer assurance of the immutability of the 
God of revelation. 

Many a weak believer loses sight of this 
great fact, and is deaf to the jubilant song of 
those who stand on Christ, the solid Rock, 
ever singing, 

" How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, 
Is laid for your faith in his excellent word." 



1 84 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Hence the doubter goes about in sadness, ex- 
pressing his fears about the sufficiency of 
Christ to keep him amid future temptations, 
though he would blush at the very thought 
of questioning the permanency of nature's 
provisions for his future physical support in 
the sunlight, air, water, and annual wheat 
harvests. 

When Lowell, the city of spindles, was pro- 
jected, and the immense water-power of the 
Merrimac was about to be harnessed to the 
machinery of numerous mills, one thought per- 
manently lodged in the minds of the people 
would forever have blocked the wheels of that 
grand enterprise, and left the site of Lowell a 
desert, as it was when the Pilgrims stepped 
upon Plymouth Rock. No money would have 
been subscribed to the corporations, no house- 
lots would have been bought, no factories 
would have been reared, no dam would have 
been built, if there had been in the public mind 
a serious doubt of the permanency of the water- 
power. This would have paralyzed the gigan- 
tic scheme, and the power of the river would 
have continued to run to waste, as it had done 
for untold ages. But the people had unques- 
tioning faith in the sun, that he would daily 
evaporate the waters of the ocean ; in the 
winds, that they would move the clouds to the 
hills of New Hampshire ; in the rains, that 



Christ our Sentinel. 185 

they would fill up the mountain springs, in 
the brooks, that they would constantly re- 
plenish the river ; and in the Merrimac, that it 
would from age to age, to the " last syllable of 
recorded time," roll downward to the Atlantic. 
So faith built Lowell, and made many a for- 
tune. Wide-spread doubt would unmake that 
beautiful hive of human industry, unhinge all 
its enterprises, and cause the grass to grow in 
its busiest streets. Thus Christians become 
rich toward God, and make everlasting for- 
tunes, when they exercise the same faith in 
Jesus Christ, the Author of Nature, who up- 
holdeth all things by the word of his power, 
as they habitually and unconsciously exercise 
in the stability of the forces of nature. It is 
the lack of this faith in Jesus Christ that makes 
so many Church members hesitate in action, 
timid in conflict, weak for burden-bearing, 
doleful in view of the future, and spiritual 
paupers all their days. Their hold upon Christ 
is less than that of the nerveless grasp of infancy 
itself. Hence they are not kept, for the divine 
safe-guard of the saints is that they " are kept 
by the power of God through faith." Human 
and divine agencies coalesce in keeping the 
soul. It is ours to trust in Jesus ; it is his to 
keep us by his power. For this very purpose 
his representative and successor, " another 
Comforter," is sent to abide in the heart of the 



1 86 Mile-Stone Papers. 

believer. A definite act of all-surrendering 
faith admits him; a continuous attitude of sub- 
missive trust retains him. In the constancy 
of his presence and power, begirding the soul 
with " might in the inner man," there is no 
caprice. The Mississippi will sooner cease to 
flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and roll north- 
ward to the Arctic Sea, than the Holy Spirit 
vacate the trusting and obedient heart. Read- 
er, sit down with your Concordance, and trace 
through the writings of John and Paul the 
words " abide," " dwell," and " remain," as they 
are used in connection with the Holy Spirit in 
the soul of the believer. You will be both 
surprised and strengthened by this research. 
Then go and give a Bible-reading on the abid- 
ing Comforter to some Christian of wavering 
faith, and cheer him by unfolding the many 
and exceedingly precious promises which Jesus 
has left on record relating to the amplitude 
and completeness of his provisions for the 
conservation of our spiritual life. If your old 
doubts should ever recur — God forbid! — give 
yourself and your doubting friend another 
Bible-reading on the word " able," in the New 
Testament, as it is related to power over sin 
and power to do effectual service for the Lord 
Jesus. Acquaintance with the promises fertil- 
izes the heart and prepares it for the upspring- 
ing of faith. 



Christ our Sentinel. 187 

When the Rev. Mr. Muller, of the Bristol 
Orphanage, was recently asked why the aver- 
age Christian had so little faith in Christ, he 
promptly replied : " Because he is so little 
acquainted with him." Heart-ignorance of 
Christ breeds heart-distrust, and this, in turn, 
begets spiritual weakness, over which Satan 
easily triumphs. The cure is found in Bengel's 
motto : — 

1 ' Apply thyself wholly to the word ; 
Apply the word wholly to thyself." 

Then, when " the exceeding greatness of his 
power to us-ward who believe " is laid open to 
your wondering eyes, and experienced by your 
exulting heart, you will sing with Frederick 
William Faber : — 

" O little heart of mine ! shall pam 

Or sorrow make thee moan, 
When all this Christ is all for thee, 

A Saviour all thine own ? " 

We cannot leave you, dear reader, without 
warning you against a mistake which is so com- 
mon as to be almost universal. It is that you 
are to be kept from yielding to sin by your 
strong resolutions, fixing your will as a flint 
against that temptation. This seems to be 
very reasonable. All the moral philosophies 
will approve your course, for this is their favor- 
ite method of conquering sin. All who know 
nothing of divine grace and the gift of the 



1 88 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Holy Spirit teach salvation by good resolu- 
tions. Many have trusted this keeping power, 
and have made a wretched failure. The gos- 
pel scheme of keeping men from sinning is so 
peculiar that it never was conceived or dreamed 
of by mere human reformers. It is to commit 
the keeping of your souls wholly to another, 
even Christ. The attitude of the watchful soul 
is to be that of Peter's eyes when he first 
stepped from the ship upon the waters of the 
sea — Looking unto Jesus. 

Philosophy says, " Eye well your deadly 
foes ; " the Gospel says, " Eye Jesus only." 
Philosophy says, " Dispose of your enemies 
first, and look to Jesus afterward ;" the Gospel 
says, " Look to Jesus first and last, and he will 
dispose of your foes." 

Weakness, not strength, comes from a con- 
stant survey of the hosts in battle array against 
you. Power comes into the palsied arm when 
the eye turns wholly toward the Angel of 
Jehovah, who encampeth around about the 
believer. Philosophy says, " Grow strong by a 
downright grapple with the threatening foe- 
man ; " but the Gospel of the Old Testament, 
as well as that of the New, says, " They that 
WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW THEIR 
STRENGTH." 

The power of Jesus to keep from sin is fitly 
illustrated by the superintending Providence 



Christ our Sentinel. 189 

which guided and protected Noah in the ark. 
Did you ever notice, in the minute description 
of that ship, which was built to make a voyage 
from the old world to the new, bearing the 
seeds of all precious things with which the 
new world was to be sown, there is no men- 
tion of the rudder? Our modern ship carpen- 
ters would laugh at the idea of launching a 
rudderless ship, just as unbelief sneers at com- 
mitting one's ways unto the Lord instead of a 
so-called manly, self-reliant self-guidance. A 
good type of the fully trusting Christian is 
good old Noah, sitting serene and unconcerned 
in his ark, as it floats over the drowned world, 
confiding in the skill of his invisible Pilot to 
keep his craft from the rocks, and to land it in 
safety on some appropriate spot. 

How could a man who had been " moved 
with fear " to build his ark sail in it, month 
after month, with no chart, nor compass, nor 
rudder, and be kept from distressing fears on 
that long and perilous voyage ? There is but 
one answer — his perfect trust in Him who had 
commanded the building of the ark. During 
this voyage of one hundred and fifty days the 
faith of Noah was more severely tested than it 
was during the one hundred and twenty years 
in which the ark was being prepared. It re- 
quires a higher style of faith to be passively 
borne along under the guidance of our heav- 



190 Mile-Stone Papers. 

enly Father than it does to be active in fulfill- 
ing the divine command. Obedience is the 
soil out of which such faith grows. If Noah 
had not obeyed Jehovah in building the ark 
and embarking in it, he could not have trusted 
him so unwaveringly. 

The Christian's ark is already prepared. 
All he is required to do is to put all on board, 
and to keep himself there. If he should be so 
unwise as to extemporize a rudder, he has no 
chart by which to lay his course, for each in- 
dividual life is mapped out only in the mind 
of the great Pilot. We are as ignorant of our 
individual future as was Noah ignorant of his 
course and destination when he climbed up 
the side of the ark and the Lord shut him in. 
If Noah had unwisely taken the direction of 
the ark into his own hands he would probably 
have wrecked it and lost its inestimable cargo. 
Thus thousands, in their distrust of God, lay 
their own hand upon the helm, and ship a crew 
of fears to torment their whole voyage, and 
run their vessel upon some uncharted reef, 
and lose all at last, or save themselves with 
great difficulty, when, through " the rest of 
faith," they might have had a joyful voyage 
and an abundant entrance into the haven of 
eternal life. How many, through unbelief, miss- 
the power of Christ to keep them, and the in 
effable peace which it brings. 



Christ our Sentinel. 191 

" If our love were but more simple, 
We should take him at his word ; 

And our lives would be all sunshine, 
In the sweetness of our Lord.' 

The very simplicity of the keeping which 
Christ exerts over all who " know the exceed- 
ing greatness of his power to us-ward who be- 
lieve " renders it impossible to describe it. 
Blessed, indeed, are they whose grasp upon the 
divine promises makes their lives a perpetual 
twenty-third Psalm : " The Lord is my Shep- 
herd." 

Other ancient worthies as well as Noah were 
led into the secret of the Lord, which made 
their lives cheerful and victorious. How calm 
and unmoved was good old Elisha, when the 
Syrian horses and chariots and a great host of 
soldiers came thundering and tramping about 
the little city of Dothan, where the prophet 
was. They had come expressly to capture 
him, because God enabled him to tell the king 
of Israel the words which the Syrian monarch, 
whispered in his bed-chamber. Why was he 
calm and unterrified ? He did not look at this 
noisy army of Syria investing the walls of Do- 
than. He had an eye which saw a mightier 
army filling all the mountain above them, un- 
der the command of Jehovah himself, the celes- 
tial Captain, who appeared to Joshua before 
the gate of Jericho. This host and its General 



192 Mile-Stone Papers. 

absorbed all his thoughts. He could look at 
nothing else. Not so Elisha's servant. Aris- 
ing early in the morning and going forth, he 
sees the beleaguering army of foemen. With 
breathless haste and pallid cheek he rushes 
back into the house, exclaiming, " Alas ! my 
master, how shall we do ? " 

In our mind's eye we see Elisha sitting on 
the side of his bed, tying on his sandals. The 
alarming news produces no tremor in his limbs, 
no change in his countenance. He coolly re- 
plies, as he completes his toilet, " Fear not ; 
for they that be with us are more than they 
that be with them." But the trembling serv- 
ant's fears were not allayed. He saw no such 
friendly army as his master was gazing intently 
upon. Then Elisha, in pity toward his fright- 
ened servant, kindly prayed, " Lord, I pray 
thee, open his eyes that he may see." And 
the Lord opened the young man's eyes, and he 
saw, and, behold, the mountain was full of 
horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha 
as his body-guard. The servant trembled no 
more. He who keepeth Israel, who doth not 
slumber nor sleep, is at hand to protect all 
who trust in Him. 

Reader, you see no such celestial army form- 
ing a hollow square about you. But you may 
believe that more than twelve legions of angels 
are bivouacked about you, and God will honor 



Christ our Sentinel, 193 

your faitht more than he would if you had 
seen these guardians with your natural eyes. 
" Thomas, because thou hast seen me thou 
hast believed ; blessed are they that have not 
seen, and yet have believed." 

We take from the shelves a book written by 
the Christian philanthropist, William Wilber- 
force, entitled, " The Practical View." We 
read again the pages we had read years ago, 
wondering why the writer should print in large 
capitals, amply spaced, six times in the course 
of nine pages, the words, " Looking UNTO 
JESUS ! " We no longer wonder, since we 
have learned by experience that this is the 
conquering attitude of the soul. Then sin ap- 
pears most hateful, the world with its pleasures 
shrivels to a mote driven by the wind, the an- 
gelic mask is stripped from the face of Satan, 
time dwindles to a point, and eternity unrolls its 
ceaseless cycles. Self is then annihilated, and 
Christ becomes all in all. In this attitude it is 
easy to " subdue kingdoms, work righteousness, 
obtain promises, stop the mouths of lions, 
quench the violence of fire, out of weakness be 
made strong, wax valiant in fight, and turn to 
flight the armies of the aliens." 

Here is the secret of so much backsliding as 

we find every-where. The eye, bewildered by 

the thousand cross-lights of worldly pleasure, 

loses sight of Christ. The keeping power of 
13 



194 Mile-Stone Papers. 

this divine vision is broken. The spell of 
pleasure has taken the place of the spell of the 
cross. The downward gravitation has taken 
the place of the heavenward. The soul is in 
imminent peril. The good evangelist, assisted 
by the Holy Spirit, must hold the lamp of gos- 
pel truth so steadily that the wandering eye 
may see once more the lost Jesus, the only 
keeper of the soul. 

" But," says an objector, " do not the Holy 
Scriptures command us to a direct hand-to- 
hand fight with our spiritual enemies, and to 
put on the whole armor for this good fight of 
faith? How, then, does the advice to look at 
Jesus only square with the Bible ? " The ques- 
tion is a fair one, for there is an apparent diffi- 
culty here which should be removed. 

Our answer is that looking unto Jesus in- 
cludes all the good resolutions against sin, all 
possible antagonisms to moral evil, and vastly 
more. It includes a sense of our own weakness, 
which drives us to the supreme source of 
strength. "When I am weak then am I 
strong." Why? Because we are led to seek 
an ally, even the unconquerable Captain of 
our salvation. And he, instead of placing us 
by his side to bear with him the brunt of the 
battle, places himself before us as an impervi- 
ous shield, interposed between us and the 
deadly weapons of the foe. 



Christ our Sentinel. 195 

Our safety and our ultimate victory are not 
secured by rushing rashly out from behind our 
covert, and slinging a few stones at the enemy 
on our own account, but by abiding trustfully 
in his shadow, assured that he is able to bring 
us off more than conquerors. This thought 
gives wonderful significance to that inspiring 
utterance which rang out from his lips just as 
he entered into his last conflict with the powers 
of darkness in Gethsemane, " Be of good cheer; 
I have overcome the world." This supposes 
that his victory is the victory of all who perse- 
veringly trust in him, and not that there is to 
be in each case an independent fight, a species 
of David and Goliath duel, between the believer 
and Satan, while Jesus looks on as a mere spec- 
tator. No, no ; this is not the style of the 
battle. Faber, the poet of the higher spiritual 
life more than any other in modern times, thus 
truthfully characterizes the soul's conflicts with 
temptation :— - 

" I have no cares, O blessed Will ! 

For all my cares are thine ; 
I live in triumph. Lord ! for thou 

Hast made thy triumphs mine/' 

The good cheer which comes to us from 
Christ's triumph over sin, death, and hell, is 
something more than the inspiration of anoth- 
er's heroism, crowned with the laurel wreath. 
It is our victory as well as his, if we abide in 



196 Mile-Stone Papers. 

him. Henceforth all we need to do, when the 
world deploys its hostile forces upon the field 
of strife, for the prize of our souls, is to point 
this enemy to his Waterloo defeat, where the 
Man of Nazareth triumphantly exclaims, " I 
have overcome the world." When Satan as- 
sails us with his seductions to evil, he is to be 
boldly told that he is a conquered adversary, 
and that he had better refresh his memory by 
reading again Christ's dispatches from the bat- 
tle of the wilderness. Matt, iv, 1-11. When 
Death arrays himself as the king of terrors, and 
with bony fingers grasps his javelin and shakes 
it at us, we point him to the vacant tomb of 
Jesus. For the victory of Jesus Christ over 
the last enemy is our triumph. His resurrec- 
tion assures ours : " I am the resurrection and 
the life." When Satan challenges us, we will 
cheerfully accept, with the hint to Apollyon 
that he will find our substitute, his old Con- 
queror, on the field. Ah ! It is the power of 
the living Jesus to identify himself with every 
believer that carries terror and defeat to our 
foes. 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 197 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

HOW THE GUIDANCE OF THE SPIRIT MAY BE 
DISCRIMINATED. 

TN this chapter we propose to discuss the guid- 
ance of the Holy Spirit, and how it may be 
discriminated from the suggestions of our own 
minds and of the tempter. The importance 
of this very difficult topic cannot be overstated. 
When Paul asserts that " as many as are led 
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of 
God," he excludes from sonship all who are 
not under this spiritual guidance. He also 
says : " But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are 
not under the law," implying that the leader- 
ship of the Spirit is the token of our deliver- 
ance not from the law as the rule of life, but 
as the ground of justification, as the impulse 
to service, and the instrument of sanctification. 
Thus the guidance of the Spirit is fundamental 
in Christian character. Yea, it is the very 
pivot of eternal destiny ; " For the minding of 
the flesh is death, but the minding of the Spirit 
is life and peace." " He that soweth to his 
flesh shall reap corruption, (spiritual death ;) 
but he that soweth to the Spirit shall reap life 
everlasting." Therefore in this discussion we 



198 Mile-Stone Papers. 

walk in a path where a misstep may precipitate 
an immortal soul down the abyss of endless 
woe. For narrow, indeed, is the line between 
fanaticism and sobriety in respect to the oper- 
ations of the Holy Spirit in advanced Chris- 
tian experience. Thousands in stepping over 
that line have found it the edge of a precipice, 
down which they have plunged into rayless 
darkness. We dare not venture upon this path 
without light from above. When Socrates, in 
his prison in Athens, on the day of his drink- 
ing the hemlock by the decree of the court, 
was about to begin his argument for the im- 
mortality of the soul, he said to his disciples : 
" Let us take hold of one another's hands, as we 
enter this deep and rapid river, and let us call 
upon the gods for help." Let us follow the 
example of this devout pagan by interlinking 
our souls in the closest Christian communion, 
and by invoking the aid of the Spirit in the 
prosecution of our inquiries respecting his own 
work in the human soul. 

" Holy Ghost, the Infinite ! 
Shine upon our nature's night 
With thy blessed inward light, 
Comforter Divine ! 

" Search for us the depths of God ; 
Bear us up the starry road 
To the light of thine abode, 
Comforter Divine ! " 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 199 

1. In executing the scheme of salvation, 
God makes two revelations of himself, one to 
the human race, and one to the individual be- 
liever in Jesus Christ. The Bible, the mes- 
sage to the race, discloses facts and truths of 
general interest, groups men into classes, and 
photographs their characters. Still, there are 
important personal facts which the Bible can- 
not communicate. Let me illustrate. I read 
that God is love. This affords hope. But I 
read again that he is angry with the wicked 
every day, and that it is a fearful thing to fall 
into the hands of the living God. My hope, 
kindled by the revelation of his love, is sudden- 
ly extinguished by the disclosure of his wrath 
against the wicked. For my conscience ac- 
cuses me of sin. Guilt burns my soul like a 
live coal of fire. In vain do I study my Bible 
for relief. It discloses the conditions of for- 
giveness, but I can rest only in the certified 
fact. This fact must constitute a personal 
revelation to me. It must be certified that I 
have been taken out of the class of the wicked, 
on whom God frowns, and that I have been 
classified with the righteous, on whom he 
smiles. This fact I cannot derive from any 
process of reasoning upon the general truths 
of the Scriptures. Inference in respect to a 
point so vital is not sufficient. A criminal 
awaiting the hour of his execution on the 



200 Mile-Stone Papers. 

scaffold cannot infer his pardon from a study 
of the general statutes of the State. This 
must be specially revealed by the governor. 
A certificate, signed and sealed, must be put 
into the prisoner's hands before he can enjoy 
the bliss of undoubted assurance. Can the 
governor make such an unquestionable cer- 
tificate of pardon ? Can God give a perfectly 
satisfactory assurance of forgiven sin, exclud- 
ing all grounds of doubt ? Can he enter the 
soul with badges of divinity so unmistakable 
as to distinguish his utterances from the mind's 
own fantasies and from the deceptions of 
Satan ? It is probable beforehand that, if a 
revelation should be made, either to the race 
or to the individual, it would be so strongly 
authenticated that the candid mind would find 
no ground for doubt. Hence the Bible comes 
to man accredited by miracles, and by some- 
thing still more convincing, the purity and 
sublimity of its disclosures. These evidences 
never fail to convince all honest and earnest 
seekers after truth. God is under no obliga- 
tion to satisfy cavilers whose chief difficulty is 
not the insufficiency of the Christian evidences, 
but their own hostility to the truth itself. In 
like manner, we should expect that when God 
speaks to the individual his intonations would 
be so peculiar as to be recognized sooner or 
later, as clearly as when he walked in Eden 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 201 

and conversed with our first parents. We say 
that his voice would be recognized sooner or 
later, because God may make the manner of 
his address to our consciousness a part of our 
probation. His first utterances may be faint 
and indistinct in order to test our sincerity, 
awaken inquiry, and inspire earnestness and in- 
tense spiritual hunger, which his later manifes- 
tations will completely satisfy. " Then shall 
ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord." 
At this point many have failed who have ex- 
pected that the full-orbed sun would instan- 
taneously arise, without the premonitory twi- 
light. They have thrown away the dawn 
because it was not the sunrise, and a cloudy 
sunrise because it was not a cloudless noon. 

2. In addition to the antecedent probability 
of a final and assured disclosure of God to the 
persevering believers in the present life, we 
have proof of his ability to authenticate his 
presence in the soul, as illustrated by man's 
power to communicate with his fellow in a 
manner which leaves no doubt of its reality. 
The mother hungering for the love of her babe 
a month old bends over it with a smile. Her 
eager heart is gladdened by an answering smile 
rippling over the dimpled cheeks. She has 
laid a telegraphic cable from the continent of 
conscious humanity to this little island, and 
the first message flashed under the sea is love. 



202 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Shall a mother more certainly unveil her heart 
to her babe than God to the soul born from 
above ? Must uncertainty shroud the mani- 
festation of the Creator to the creature, while 
certainty attends the revelation of that creature 
to his fellow ? Is there greater liability that 
God will be so mixed up with our fancies as 
that they will be mistaken for his utterances, 
than there is that your personality will be so 
confounded with my thoughts and feelings 
that I will imagine that they are your com- 
munications? Can you unmistakably enter 
my consciousness with the key of a spoken 
word, so that I discriminate you from the 
varying states of my own mind and from the 
millions of articulate mortals around me, while 
the Holy Spirit is baffled in his attempt un- 
erringly to impress upon my soul the word 
Abba, Father, the seal of my spiritual adop- 
tion ? To answer these questions negatively 
is to put limitations upon God which not only 
destroy his omnipotence, but degrade him be- 
low his creatures. 

3. Christian experience, especially in its 
higher phases, abundantly testifies to the certi- 
tude of the inward revelations of the Comfort- 
er. The burden of this testimony, all along 
the Christian ages, is not that dogmatic truth 
is inwardly revealed, but that the facts of per- 
sonal iustifkation and entire sanctification, 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 203 

fundamental to complete Christian character, 
are disclosed to all who perfectly trust in Him 
who is able to save to the uttermost. Nor 
will the attestation of these souls, who with 
Moses have trodden the Mount of God, and 
conversed with him face to face in spiritual 
communion, be invalidated in the estimation 
of the wise, by the fact that they have been 
stigmatized as fanatics, Pietists, Lollards, 
Mystics, Waldenses, Quakers, and Methodists. 
For in this series of opprobrious nicknames we 
find the real apostolical succession, and not in 
an unbroken chain of prelatical ordinations. 
The martyr fires, which illumined the dark 
ages, conserved our spiritual Christianity 
against councils and inquisitions. What was 
the heresy of Tauler, Suso, Eckhart, Madame 
Guyon, Luther, and Wesley, but the manifes- 
tation of Christ to the believer, through the 
Holy Spirit, certifying forgiveness, renewing 
and sanctifying the soul. The conscious in- 
coming of the Paraclete into the heart of John 
Wesley was the secret of that impulse which 
he communicated to Protestant Christianity 
throughout the world. These are his words : 
" Then I felt my heart strangely warmed. I 
felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for sal- 
vation ; and an assurance was given me, that 
he had taken away my sins, even mine, and 
saved me from the law of sin and death ; and 



204 Mile-Stone Papers. 

I testified openly to all there what I now first 
felt in my heart." Toward ten o'clock a troop 
of friends attended him from the Moravian 
chapel to his brother Charles, and sang a hymn 
with joy. Here we find the main-spring of 
those tireless and herculean labors of Wesley, 
preaching forty-two thousand and four hun- 
dred sermons, editing books by the hundred, 
and founding Christian charities which shall 
endure to the end of time, and missions which 
have already belted the world with a girdle of 
light. The three elements of the success of the 
Wesleyan movement are all found in the ex- 
perience of its providental founder — the direct 
witness of the Spirit, an open testimony, and 
joyful hymns. Before dismissing Methodism 
from our witness-stand, we will ask her how 
she conserves the orthodoxy of her multitudi- 
nous Church of more than four millions in all 
her branches, through nearly a century and a 
half, without a doctrinal schism. Not by papal 
anathemas, but by an open Bible, interpreted 
in the light of a spiritual experience. These, 
instead of disintegrating the Church into indi- 
vidualism, bind it into a spiritual unity ani- 
mated by freedom. 

4. Having thus far argued the certitude of 
the Holy Spirit's communications to the be- 
liever, first, from the antecedent probability ; 
secondly, from the power of God ; and, thirdly, 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 205 

from the testimony of the deepest Christian 
experience, we proceed, lastly, to adduce a few 
of the abundant scriptural proofs. It is the 
Spirit's office to convict of sin. If his testi- 
mony is not infallibly sure, then sin may either 
have no real existence, and be only the illusion 
of a superstitious imagination, or, if sin has a 
being, we have no divinely certified knowl- 
edge of that fact — a conclusion repugnant to 
both reason and conscience. Again, it is the 
work of the Spirit to lead all willing souls to 
Christ. When the human conditions are per- 
fect — an entire and irreversible surrender to 
him as both Saviour and Lord — if the Spirit 
does not, without fail, guide to Christ and lead 
into all saving truth, the bottom falls out of 
all God's promises to penitent believers in the 
record which he has given concerning his 
Son. 

The supposition that there is uncertainty 
in the guidance of the Spirit in all matters 
necessary to salvation strikes at the very heart 
of the New Testament, and lets the very life- 
blood out of the Epistles of Paul and John. 
In that case the Gospel would be like a 
farm deeded to a son, with no right of way to 
it from any direction. If the office of the 
Spirit is uncertain, our Protestantism is forever 
in the mists of doubt, the plenary inspiration 
of the Scriptures is blotted out of Christian 



206 Mile-Stone Papers. 

theology, and all assurance of eternal life is 
stricken out of human hearts. And yet all this 
dubiousness exists, if we are unable to distin- 
guish the voice of God from the suggestions 
of our own minds and of the tempter in ques- 
tions pertaining to salvation. Observe the fre- 
quent use of the words know and knowledge in 
the New Testament, God, Christ, the Comfort- 
er, and forgiveness, being the objects. Jesus, 
in his wonderful high-priestly address to the 
Father in John xvii, declares that " This is 
life eternal, that they might know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
hast sent." We are promised a knowledge of 
salvation by the remission of sins. Paul 
speaks in emphatic condemnation of those 
who are never able to come to a knowledge of 
the truth. He is speaking not of an intellect- 
ual grasp of the truth, but of its spiritual 
realization. The English reader of the Paul- 
ine Epistles fails to discover the fullness and 
certainty of the knowledge of spiritual realities 
on which the apostle insists. 

In his struggle of mind and strain of style 
to express the Christian's privilege of full and 
undoubted knowledge of spiritual realities he 
accumulates epithets which burden his sen- 
tences, as in Col. ii, 2. 

He employs the compound word iniyvcjmz, 
full knowledge, when he wishes to be emphatic, 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 207 

instead of yv&oig, knowledge. Bishop Ellicott 
and Dean Alford authorize this strengthened 
translation in the following passages: Eph.i, 17, 
"full knowledge of him;" iv, 13, " perfect 
knowledge of the Son of God ; " Col. iii, 10, 
" renewed unto perfect knowledge after the 
image of him that created him ; " 1 Tim. ii, 4, 
" who willeth all men to be saved and come to 
the certain knowledge of the truth ; " 2 Tim. 
iii, 7, " ever learning, and never yet able to 
come to the full knowledge of the truth." 
Peter uses the strengthened form in his Second 
Epistle i, 8, " toward the perfect knowledge of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

But the most astonishing declaration of the 
intimate and assured knowledge of Christ 
which the believer may enjoy is found in John 
x, 14, 15, when correctly translated and punc- 
tuated : " I know my sheep and am known of 
mine, as the Father knoweth me, and I know 
the Father." 

The believer knows Christ as the Son knows 
the Father. The Son knows the Father by an 
inexpressible union with him. The Son knows 
the Father as a person, for love has only a 
person for its object. He knows not by in- 
ference, but by intuition. Thus do we by 
direct spiritual perception know Christ as our 
adorable Saviour. As Jesus never doubts his 
communion with the Father, so the full-grown 



2o8 Mile-Stone Papers. 

disciple may say of his fellowship with the 
Son of God, 

" I know not what it is to doubt. 

My reader, if your knowledge of Christ is 
not thus undoubting, it proves that you have 
not, through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, 
received a spiritual revelation of him within 
you. Gal. i, 16. As a lamb, you may not 
discriminate the voice of the good Shepherd ; 
as a wanderer from the fold, you may be too 
far away to hear it ; or, as a stranger, you 
never knew him. 

For the excellency, or super-eminence, of 
this knowledge, Paul counted all things but 
loss. His " Yea, doubtless," indicates that he 
thought that he had made a good bargain. 

" Other knowledge I disdain ; 

'Tis all but vanity; 
Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain. 

He tasted death for me." 

Now, in every perfect cognition, or act of 
knowing, there is a separation of the object 
from all its surroundings. This is expressed 
in the very derivation of the word discern, 
from the Latin dis, apart, and cernere, to see. 
Therefore when we savingly know God we dis- 
criminate him from our own thoughts and 
feelings and from all other objects of knowl- 
edge. 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 209 

We come now to that topic in our theme in 
which its chief interest centers. How may 
the movements of the Holy Spirit be discrim- 
inated from the suggestions of our own minds 
and of the tempter? On this point many an 
acute skeptic has puzzled many an untaught 
believer. " How do you know that all this ex- 
perience of God in your soul of which you tes- 
tify is not illusory, the play of your own 
emotions, or, as the philosophers say, sub- 
jective, having its origin within the thinking 
subject, and having no objective or external 
cause?" The inability of the Christian to an- 
swer this question by explaining the how, or 
manner, of this knowledge of Christ, has often 
sorely distressed him, and afforded a seeming 
triumph to the infidel. Both the distress and 
the triumph are without sufficient grounds. 
Knowledge is of two kinds, historical and phil- 
osophical — the knowing that a thing is and the 
knowing how that a thing is. By far the most 
important part of our knowledge is his- 
torical ; we know the facts and nothing more. 
We can give no reason for the fact of our 
personal existence and identity. We cannot 
tell how we apprehend the existence of time 
and space, cause and effect, right and wrong. 
We cannot tell why a rose is beautiful, and 
Niagara sublime. We cannot give the why or 
wherefore of the axioms of mathematics, as 
14 



210 Mile-Stone Papers. 

that two quantities equal to a third are equal to 
each other. All these cognitions are intuitions 
of our reason, of which we can give no other ac- 
count than that they exist, and we know them. 
They cannot be taken in pieces and explained 
in their component parts, because they are 
simple and primordial ideas. They lie at the 
bottom of all our other knowledge. They are 
the original capital with which our Creator 
has endowed our reasoning faculties and set 
them up in business. These truths are called 
intuitive, from the Latin verb intueri, to look 
straight at. There are not only intuitions of 
the reason, but also those of the five senses. 
These we call perceptions. We see the clouds 
above and the landscape beneath, but we can 
give no explanation of the mode of our see- 
ing. A cunning lawyer, in cross-examining a 
witness respecting some fact to which he had 
testified as having occurred under his own ob- 
servation, being seen and heard, asked, " How 
do you know that you know this fact ? " The 
witness replied, " I cannot tell how I know, 
while I am sure that I know." The lawyer, 
turning to the court, called attention to this 
admission of the witness. The judge im- 
mediately replied, " This court requires wit- 
nesses to tell what they know, but not how 
they know that they know." 

There is a class of people who have not only 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 211 

the intuitions of the reason and of the senses, 
but spiritual perceptions also. These are they 
whose spiritual senses have been quickened in- 
to activity by the Holy Spirit. Paul, in strict 
accordance with the best modern psychology, 
describes man as a trichotomy, or threefold 
compound, having a body, an animal soul, and 
a spirit, like a dome crowning this splendid 
temple of God on the earth. In the unre- 
generate this dome is thickly curtained, so that 
no light enters, and spiritual perception is im- 
possible. Faith in Christ removes the curtain ; 
God's Spirit instantly lights up the dome, and 
there is the entrancing gladness of spiritual 
vision. Jesus Christ stands forth, the One al- 
together lovely, the soul's personal Saviour. 
How this revelation is made the soul knows 
not. A new class of intuitions has been sud- 
denly unfolded before the astonished gaze of 
the consciousness. Scenes of spiritual beauty, 
the creations of Divinity, stud the canvass, but 
how the soul sees them or discriminates them 
from its own inventions it cannot tell. When 
the sun arises, he brings his own light with 
him. We do not light a candle to see the 
king of day come forth from his chamber, nor 
are we in doubt whether it is the sun, or a 
light in the window of some early rising neigh- 
bor. Some facts are self-evidenced. When 
God, the Holy Spirit, enters the human soul, 



212 Mile-Stone Papers. 

his temple on earth, it knows it. We need 
not light the flickering lamp of philosophy to 
show the King of glory to his throne within. 
We are in no danger of confounding his sub- 
lime utterances with our groveling thoughts. 
Who is so foolish as to suppose that a com- 
pany of stone-masons built up Niagara Falls, 
or reared the arch of the milky way? God's 
works bear his unmistakable impress, whether 
they are wrought in matter or in spirit. They 
need no label to inform us that they are the 
products of almighty power. Their divine au- 
thorship is recognized at the first glance. 
Christians have needlessly suffered from the 
mistake that they must construct a philosophy 
of all the facts of Christian experience, and 
that a failure in this regard argues some weak- 
ness in the Christian system. The demand 
for such an account of the manner of spiritual 
phenomena should be just as strenuously re- 
sisted as it is in the case of the intuitions of 
the reason and of the senses. To our mental 
philosophies we should add this third class of 
intuitions, which are attested by all persons 
who have experienced the incoming of the 
Paraclete, either as the witness of their adop- 
tion, or as their abiding sanctifier. 

We recognize his inward presence and activ- 
ities, and in our more exalted experiences we 
discriminate between these and the operations 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 213 

of our own minds ; but how we do this is an in- 
quiry as impertinent in respect to the spiritual 
as it is in respect to the natural intuitions. 

God has endowed us with the capacity to 
grasp all needful historical knowledge. Philo- 
sophical knowledge may be dispensed with 
till we can construct it. It is enough to know 
the fact that bread nourishes. We shall do 
very well with this knowledge, a plenty of 
bread, and a good appetite, though we may be 
ignorant of the philosophy of bread-making and 
of the physiology of nutrition. 

Let us see how it is in other departments of 
our knowledge. Can we discriminate between 
concepts of the memory and those of the imag- 
ination ? If we cannot, there is an end to all 
testimony in courts, to all writing of history, 
to all truth-telling. We should all be afloat on 
a sea of doubt unless we had this power to dis- 
tinguish between fact and fiction, as presented 
to our minds by the representative faculty. 
But how do we thus discriminate? Who can 
tell? Every sane intellect discriminates, but 
none has ventured to explain the process. In 
the same way we distinguish between a per- 
ception and a conception. We see the waters 
leaping down Niagara's cataract. We return 
to our room, close the window blinds, and in 
the darkness, with closed eyes, the mind's eye 
sees another waterfall, rivaling Niagara, and 



214 Mile-Stone Papers. 

resembling it in all particulars. Can we tell 
the difference between the cataract out of 
doors and that which is in our mind ? Yes, we 
can tell it to ourselves, but to none other. 
We can give no philosophy of this matter. 
Yet we are not thrown into doubt and distrust 
of the veracity of our faculties because we can- 
not draw a line which every body can see be- 
tween the objective and the subjective, be- 
tween a perception and a conception. In the 
pronoun we those are not included who are 
wandering in the fog of extreme German 
idealism. 

If the Spirit-illumined soul is endowed with 
spiritual intuitions we should expect these to 
stand the tests of the natural intuitions. In- 
tuitive ideas, according to Sir W. Hamilton, 
are necessary, self-evident, universal, and in- 
comprehensible. Christians filled with the 
Spirit attest that their knowledge of Christ, as 
a personal, loving Saviour, has these four char- 
acteristics. We ought not to be surprised that 
the spiritual intuitions have hitherto attracted 
so little scientific study when we learn that 
the whole subject of primary truths is with 
philosophers a gold mine only just opened. 
No shaft has yet been sent down to the bot- 
tom. The number of intuitive ideas, their re- 
lation to one another and to science, have not 
been determined with any degree of accuracy, 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 2 1 5 

though there is an increasing tendency to rec- 
ognize and classify these primordial elements 
of knowledge. One very important distinction 
has been established, which relieves the subject 
of a difficulty at the very threshold, the dis- 
tinction between comprehension and appre- 
hension. We cannot comprehend the infinite 
and the absolute, but we can apprehend them. 
We cannot comprehend God the Holy Spirit, 
but, when we fulfill the required conditions, 
we do assuredly apprehend the Paraclete dwell- 
ing within. This accords with the discrimina- 
tion between that and how that — knowledge 
historical or experimental, and knowledge phil- 
osophical. The command given by the Spirit 
to Peter on the housetop at Joppa beautifully 
illustrates this distinction : fl And the Spirit 
bade me go with them, nothing doubting." 
The Greek for " doubting " signifies separating, 
analyzing, discriminating— that process of men- 
tal action necessary to a perfect comprehension 
of the matter. Peter, having apprehended the 
will of the Spirit, is forbidden to sit down and 
philosophize and sharply define, to the satis- 
faction of all inquirers, the boundary between 
the Spirit's command and his own thoughts. 
If he had waited till he fully comprehended 
what he undoubtedly apprehended, Peter would 
never have reached the head-quarters of Cor- 
nelius and opened the kingdom of Christ to 



216 Mile-Stone Papers. 

the Gentile world. Thank God that he was a 
man of sound common sense, and not a Hegel- 
ian philosopher ! 

He is strong who grounds himself in intui- 
tive truths. This made the shepherd boy, 
George Fox, the founder of the Society of 
Friends, irresistible in his conflicts with the 
university graduates two hundred years ago. 
Says Bancroft : " They trembled and scud as 
he drew near ; so that it was a dreadful thing 
to them when it was told them, ' The man in 
leathern breeches is come ! ' ' It was intuitive 
truth that made Theodore Parker strong as a 
moral reformer. His failure to build on the 
whole range of those truths made his "Abso- 
lute Religion " a manifest failure, as is shown 
by the providential man who has come to 
prove him, Joseph Cook. 

We have only a few hints to give respecting 
the suggestions of the tempter and their dis- 
crimination from our own thoughts. Wicked 
men do not make this discrimination, so closely 
do their own feelings and activities resemble 
those of the great adversary. Hence young 
converts often testify that they were not con- 
scious of the existence of the devil till they 
were regenerated. . Into the muddy stream of 
human depravity Satan plunges, and, concealed 
from consciousness, floats through the sinful 
soul unseen, because he is of the very hue of 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 217 
the stream. But let that river become clarified. 



and the tempter can then no longer enter the 
soul in disguise. To the holy soul he comes 
in his own proper character, and is quickly rec- 
ognized as an objective power attempting to 
intrude into an element wholly unlike himself. 
Thus a man entirely sanctified may have severe 
outward conflicts with Satan, but he has the ad- 
vantage of knowing his foe, and his outwardness, 
if, " by reason of use, [habit,] he has his senses 
[spiritual perceptions] exercised to discern 
[discriminate between] both good and evil." 

With respect to the daily guidance of the 
soul irreversibly self-surrendered to God, we 
believe that the Holy Spirit animates and in- 
forms the whole man, using his common sense, 
his stores of knowledge, his reason, judgment, 
spiritual aspiration and aptitude, deference to 
the advice of holy people, providential events, 
and the Holy Scriptures in determining any 
particular question of duty. In many instances 
he need not discriminate the Spirit's voice 
from his own reflections, for the Spirit may 
have gone down into the mysterious depths, and 
originated that train of thought which will un- 
erringly conduct him to the desired conclusion. 
This remark applies only to daily guidance, and 
not to the direct witness of the Spirit to our 
adoption and entire sanctification.* Cases of 

* See Rom. viii, 15, 16 ; Gal. iv, 6 ; I Cor. ii, 12 ; 1 John ii, 27. 



218 Mile-Stone Papers. 

marked and persistent impressions made by 
the Spirit, impelling to a certain act or restrain- 
ing from it, do occur. But these are excep- 
tional to the general law of the Spirit, and they 
may be known generally by their peculiarity 
and persistence. Our advice respecting them 
is like that of Dr. Samuel Johnson respecting 
dreams: " Do not wholly reject them, for they 
may be true; do not fully believe them, for 
they may be false." Do not wait for a special 
impression to make personal effort to save a 
soul ; but rather say with Dr. Chalmers, when 
a human being is within your reach, " Here is 
an immortal soul whose eternal destiny I may 
influence. Let me stir up all my powers to 
make the most of this great opportunity." A 
favorite method of determining divine direction, 
with minds not the best informed, is a species 
of Bible sortilege. At the random opening of 
the book the first verse that meets the eye is 
regarded as decisive of the question. For in- 
stance, a Methodist preacher in his perplexity 
about " the five points," arising from his Cal- 
vinian education, kneeled down, opened his 
Bible, appealing to God to direct his eyes, 
and read, " This persuasion cometh not of Him 
who calleth you." This lottery ticket drawn 
out of the sacred oracles afforded the distressed 
Arminian more comfort than it probably does 
to my Calvinistic reader. A much safer way 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 2 19 

would be to " search the Scriptures," and not 
treat them in this lazy and presumptuous 
manner. 

But the question still recurs, " Can we 
expect divine guidance so perfect as to be 
kept from mistakes in our daily lives ? " Not 
from what men call mistakes. These may not 
be mistakes in the plan of God, but stepping- 
stones to some higher good, like Paul's prayer 
for the removal of the thorn. " All things 
work together for good to them that love 
God," and just in proportion to the degree of 
this love. If this precious promise does not 
include our innocent misjudgments, overruled 
by a benignant Providence for his greater 
glory and our higher well-being, it is only a 
mockery of our wants, for our lives are full of 
errors. 

" The mistakes of my life have been many." 

Sin is always a sad mistake. Its primary 
meaning in the Greek is missing the mark. 
Beyond this we cannot say that any particular 
act is a mistake when measured by that higher 
standard, the glory of God, or good in the long 
run, under the moral government of Him 
" whose eyes run to and fro throughout the 
whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf 
of them whose heart is perfect toward him." * 
If we are wholly consecrated to God, and un- 

* 2 Chron. xvi, 9. 



220 Mile-Stone Papers. 

waveringly trusting him, exercising to the ut- 
most the gift of common sense, we may with- 
out presumption say of our lives, as a whole, 
that we are under the guidance of the Holy 
Spirit. He enters into our whole being. In 
minor questions, not relating to our personal 
salvation, he may not distinguish himself from 
our thoughts, feelings and volitions, because 
he originates and animates them. As there 
are two theories of inspiration, so there are 
two theories of spiritual guidance. The verbal 
inspirationist would have every word of the 
Bible injected into the writer's mind, distin- 
guishable from his own thoughts. The plenary 
inspirationist teaches that the whole man is 
inspired and exalted by the divine afflatus, 
his scholastic culture, the treasures of his 
memory — as Paul's knowledge of the Greek 
poets — his logic and style, all being used by 
the Holy Spirit. Some may desire a guidance 
corresponding to verbal inspiration, eager to 
see the very footsteps of God within ; but 
others are content with what we may style a 
plenary guidance, the assurance of the fullness 
of the indwelling Spirit diffused through all 
our being, but in thought generally not dis- 
tinguishable from ourselves. We teach that 
God has an ideal of every man's life. This in- 
volves two things, his highest glory and our 
highest happiness. It is the office of the 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 221 

Spirit to lead the child through this plan from 
the cradle to the grave. If we always follow 
our divine Guide, we shall invariably attain 
these two ends. History gives us but one 
such life, the life that was cradled in the 
manger. All others at some point have 
marred the divine ideal by deserting the 
heavenly Leader, and following their own will. 
So we have all failed to fill out God's pro- 
gramme, which involved our highest possibili- 
ties of usefulness and enjoyment. We are all 
doing our second best. We mean Christians, 
who walk in the light and realize that the blood 
of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, " actual 
and original," as says Bengel. The great 
difficulty in the matter of the Spirit's guidance 
is not in discriminating his movements in all 
the details of life, but in our total and ir- 
reversible abandonment of self, and enthrone- 
ment of Christ within. When this has been 
done once for all, details adjust themselves 
without special impressions. Waiting for these 
before putting forth Christian activities has 
blighted many lives. Said a Quaker preacher, 
in answer to Wesley's question, " Will you 
preach in your meeting to-day?" " Yes, if 
the Spirit moves." " But," replied John, " I 
shall preach that the Spirit may move." He 
needed but one impulse to service, and that 
lasted all his life. In respect to the Spirit's 



222 Mile-Stone Papers. 

call to preach, the capital mistake is in preach- 
ing under the woe, and not under the anoint- 
ing. " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, be- 
cause he hath anointed me to preach the 
gospel." The Church has less to fear from 
Huxley and the materialists than from preach- 
ers crammed with rhetoric, but destitute of the 
anointing that abideth and teacheth. To re- 
buke this folly of our scholastic age, God has 
thrust out, from a Chicago wholesale boot and 
shoe warehouse, a salesman with nothing but 
an English Bible in his hand, plain Anglo- 
Saxon on his tongue, and the fullness of the 
Spirit in his heart, to draw multitudes to 
Christ. 

We conclude our discussion by laying down 
the four following negative limitations to the 
revelations of the Holy Spirit in the human 
soul. 

i. They must not be repugnant to the 
divine endowment of reason. Whether or not 
Cousin's doctrine be true, that reason is im- 
personal, and hence the same in man, arch- 
angel, and God, it is evident that it is a gift of 
the Creator, and can never clash with his other 
gift, the Comforter. We must ever hold fast 
to the declaration that faith in Jesus Christ is 
the highest dictate of reason. There may be 
a conflict between faith and the erroneous de- 
ductions of reason, but there never ca i be 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 223 

hostility between intuitive truth in the domain 
of the intellect and intuitive truth in the realm 
of the spiritual nature illumined by the Spirit 
divine. The spiritual intuitions may be far 
above the merely intellectual, but they can 
never contradict them. Hence we leave to the 
Church of Rome the undisputed monopoly of 
the doctrine that confidence in our own intelli- 
gence, that consecrated bread is bread still, is 
the highway to hell. 

" Sure, He that made us with such large discourse, 
Looking before and after, gave us not 
That capability and godlike reason 
To rust in us unused. "^Shakspeare. 

2. The Spirit's inward utterances are never 
contrary to his declarations in the Holy Script- 
ures. This is too obvious to require proof. 
If any so-called spiritual guidance is repug- 
nant to the plain teachings of God's word as 
interpreted by that universal agreement styled 
the analogy of faith, this professed guidance 
must be erroneous. We have no just grounds 
for the expectation that the Paraclete, inde- 
pendently of all acquaintance with the orig- 
inal tongues, commentaries, lexicons, and other 
critical aids, will open to the believer the treas- 
ures contained in the Bible, and pour them in- 
to the mind without danger of error. Never- 
theless, a perfectly candid inquirer, putting his 



224 Mile-Stone Papers. 

intellect under the guidance of the Spirit in 
unwavering trust, though he may make many 
mistakes in non-essentials, will infallibly be 
led to Christ, the sum and substance of all 
saving truth. 

3. The Holy Spirit can never antagonize our 
moral intuitions, or, in plainer terms, impel us 
to do what we know is wrong. He is called 
the Holy Spirit not because he is holier than 
the Father and the Son, but because his mis- 
sion is to make men holy. He can never 
sanction unrighteous acts, which the universal 
conscience unhesitatingly condemns, such as 
ingratitude to a benefactor. We go a step 
further, and assert that the Spirit will not 
prompt to a wrong act, such as compressing 
the feet of a Chinese female infant, to which 
the miseducated conscience of the Pagan moth- 
er may prompt. In complying with a cruel 
custom she may plead that she is, in her view 
of the case, providing for the best future of 
her child, but she can never truthfully plead 
the promptings of the Holy Spirit in doing 
evil that good may come. 

4. The last limitation is that the Holy Spirit 
never utters a word or prompts to an act de- 
rogatory to Christ. Since it is his office to 
glorify Christ, the Comforter will never de- 
grade him by denying or detracting from one 
of his claims. He professed to be an infallible 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 225 

teacher, to be absolutely sinless, to set a fault- 
less example, to have a right to universal 
obedience, to work miracles, to fulfill the 
prophecies, to be the Messiah of the Jews, the 
Light of the world, the Saviour of men, the Son 
of God, in a sense so unique that he was the 
only begotten ; he declared that he would raise 
the dead, and judge the world ; and, lastly, 
that he was one with the Father, having all 
power in heaven and on earth. The Paraclete 
is a mirror, wherein is reflected the image 
of the risen and invisible Jesus, as he truly is, 
without distortion. " The Spirit of truth which 
proceedeth from the Father, HE SHALL TES- 
TIFY OF ME. He shall GLORIFY ME, for he 
shall receive of mine and show (tell, Greek) 
it unto you." He never mars the symme- 
try of the God-man. " Wherefore I give 
you to understand that no man speaking by 
the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed." 
Hence it is an incontestable fact of Church 
history that every lapse from orthodoxy has 
been preceded by spiritual decay. The Holy 
Ghost leaves the Church before she can deny 
the lordship of Jesus her great Head. For 
proof of this, study the religious history of 
New England. " Every spirit that confesseth 
not Jesus Christ come in the flesh, is not of 
God." This is Dean Alford's version, who 
asserts that the PERSON of Christ, and not 
15 



226 Mile-Stone Papers. 

some fact pertaining to him, is the object of 
the confession. Whatever that spirit is that 
denies one claim of Christ, or obscures one 
feature of his glorious likeness, as it beams 
upon us in the Gospels, we may be well as- 
sured that this spirit is not the Divine Lim- 
ner who portrayed that likeness with the pen 
of the four evangelists. When Jesus is ranked 
with Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mo- 
hammed, in the style of our modern free-relig- 
ionists, we may feel certain that the Spirit of 
truth does not suggest this degrading clas- 
sification. 

The conclusion at which we arrive is this: 
On the vital and all-important question of our 
relation to the law of God — whether condemned 
or justified, polluted or purified — he unmistak- 
ably reveals himself in our consciousness, as dis- 
tinct from the suggestions of our own minds and 
of the tempter. On minor questions of daily 
guidance in life's duties the Spirit usually 
mingles, unconsciously to us, in our medita- 
tions, and originates our trains of thought in 
such a manner as to assure us that we are 
under his general guidance, but not in such a 
degree as to enable us to say that he is the 
author of our words. We deem that person 
on the verge of fanaticism who prefaces his 
utterances thus, " The Spirit would have me 
say." 



Guidance of the Spirit Discriminated. 227 

We cannot finish this chapter without 
frankly confessing, what our readers have 
already discovered, that we have not thrown 
much light upon the obscurities involved in 
this theme. Our discussion has taken us into 
a region where modest suggestions are far more 
appropriate than oracular assertions. But pos- 
sibly we may have done service to the reader 
by marking out clearly the boundaries which 
it is impossible for the human intellect to pass ; 
just as the mathematician does good service 
to the student by designating the insoluble 
problems, and the natural philosopher benefits 
the whole class of mechanical inventors by 
demonstrating that perpetual motion cannot 
be created by the ingenuity of man. It is a 
great gain to know which are the insoluble 
problems in the algebra of human life. Thus 
we gain time for the practical and profitable 
problems of Christianity. Moreover, we could 
also earnestly desire that minds prone to 
skepticism in regard to the operations of 
the Holy Spirit in the human consciousness 
may, in the light of this dissertation, see the 
unreasonableness of their demand for the ra- 
tionale of the communication of the Divine 
Intelligence with the soul of man, and accept 
the concurrent testimony of myriads of credi- 
ble witnesses in all Christian lands and ages. 
But we have little ground for the hope that 



228 Mile-Stone Papers. 

they who, because they see him not, receive 
not the Paraclete, but 

" His presence doubt, his gifts deride," 

will believe their fellowmen in testifying of an 
inward Christian experience. They who deny 
the existence of the workman will discredit 
his work. 

" In us, for us, intercede, 

And with voiceless groanings plead 

Our unutterable need, 

Comforter Divine ! 

" In us ' Abba, Father,' cry- 
Earnest of our bliss on high, 
Seal of immortality — 

Comforter Divine ! 

" We are sinful ; cleanse us, Lord , 
We are faint ; thy strength afford ; 
Lost — until by thee restored, 
Comforter Divine ! 

" Like the dew, thy peace distill, 
Guide, subdue our wayward will, 
hings of Christ unfolding still, 
Comforter Divine ! " 



PAET II. 

EXPERIMENTAL ESSAYS. 



F 



CHAPTER I. 

IN THE HEAVENLIES. 

'Ev Tolg kirovpavlois. 
Eph. i, 3, 20 ; ii, 6 ; iii, io ; vi, 12. 

OLLOWING the custom of tourists in for- 
eign lands, I give you a description of the 
country in which I have happily sojourned 
nearly five years. I must confess that I have 
more than a traveler's interest in this land, 
since I have become a naturalized citizen, and 
have settled down in it for life. 

This country was named by one Paul, a 
daring explorer who flourished at the begin- 
ning of the Christian era, and who, like the 
writer, became so enamored of its charms that 
he ever after made it his permanent abode. 
It so closely resembled heaven that he took 
that term and transformed it into an adjective 
noun, " The Heavenlies," and wrote it down on 
his chart as the new country. This new name 
he uses five times in his report to the Ephe- 
sians, and nowhere else. 



230 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Some recent travelers, who have not dili- 
gently studied Paul's chart, either driven by 
severe storms from the ordinary track of voy- 
agers, or through an enterprise rivaling that of 
the great Genoese discoverer, or, more likely 
still, through the guidance of Paul's pilot, 
whom he took on board in Damascus, have 
found this earthly paradise, and, assuming the 
right of original discoverers, they have chris- 
tened it " The Higher Life." This new name, 
though rather confusing to the novice, has not 
altered the thing. " The rose would smell as 
sweet under any other name." This Rose of 
Sharon, this isle of verdure and orange blos- 
soms, fills with fragrance all the air for leagues 
and leagues around. 

My great surprise, after entering this Eden 
and feasting on its sweetness, was at the 
sparseness of its population. For the land is 
exceedingly broad and fruitful, capable of sus- 
taining with its abundance all the millions who 
are moistening the unwilling earth with their 
sweat, and compelling it to yield them a scan- 
ty sustenance. Why do they not migrate 
to these salubrious climes ? This question I 
have been pondering ever since I drove my 
tent stakes into the mellow soil of these flowery 
plains. At last I think that I have got at the 
truth of the matter. The false report has 
been industriously circulated through all the 



In the Heavenlies. 231 

world that Paul's discovery was an optical il- 
lusion, a mirage in the distance, with bubbling 
fountains, shady trees, rich vineyards, «and 
olive-clad uplands, all painted with fiery fin- 
gers on the clouds through a peculiar state of 
the tropical atmosphere. It is confidently as- 
serted that he sailed on and on, chasing this 
visionary paradise, and never actually set foot 
upon its shore and demonstrated that it is a 
veritable terra firma. " Did he not," it is 
asked, " once acknowledge this humiliating 
fact — ' not that I have already attained ? * " * 

Now, it so happens that the great real-estate 
owner, or " ruler of the darkness of this 
world," who boasts, with too much truth, that 
he possesses all the kingdoms of this world 
and their glory, keeps this falsehood going 
with a very lively step round and round the 
world, lest the truth should be believed, and 
his tenants should all emigrate to this Eden 
world, and leave his estates a habitation of 
bats and a " place of dragons." This wily 
despot dislikes to see his dominions depopu- 
lated to colonize Paul's " Heavenlies," and so 
he is ever busy denying that any such place 
exists on the face of the whole earth, asserting 
that it is like the Ultima Thule of ancient 
geography, which ever receded toward the 

* Paul refers not to evangelical perfection, but to the victor's 
crown. 



232 Mile-Stone Papers. 

north pole, till at last it was suspected by all 
sensible men that it existed only in the eye of 
Pythias, the discoverer. Now, it is nothing 
wonderful that this mythical theory almost 
universally prevails to-day, since the aforesaid 
world-ruler has actually succeeded in accom- 
plishing so adroit an act as to get thousands 
of Paul's successors solemnly to aver that they 
have diligently sought for " The Heavenlies " in 
all latitudes and longitudes, and to publish as 
God's truth that no such place exists under 
the heavens. The lie which millions believe of 
their own accord myriads will surely believe if 
it falls from the lips of their religious teachers. 

Another reason for the sparse population is 
that, of the few who do believe that this land 
is a reality and no myth, a large number are 
deterred from entering by reason of the narrow 
channel through which they must force their 
way, and they are afraid that in entering " The 
Heavenlies " they will lose too much of their 
idolized earthly. This narrow pass is The Way 
of Holiness. Hear Paul: " Blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in The 
Heavenlies in Christ. . . . that we should be 
holy and without blame before him in love." 
Holiness is the only gate into this blessed 
region, which many are afraid to enter. 

But you are hungering for a description of 



In the Heavenlies. 233 

the country itself. As its name indicates, The 
Heavenlies includes heaven. The glorified 
Jesus is said, in chap, i, 20, to be at the right 
hand of God in The Heavenlies, " in human 
form, locally existent." In chap, iii, 10, 
" principalities and powers," or spiritual in- 
telligence of a high order, are located in " The 
Heavenlies." But in chap, i, 3, Paul and the 
Ephesian believers are represented as " in The 
Heavenlies," and in chap, ii, 6, they are sitting 
" together in The Heavenlies in Christ Jesus," 
the " sitting " implying permanence of abode. 
This phrase, then, must include more than the 
heaven which centers in the radiant person of 
Jesus. Heaven laps over upon the earth. A 
segment of earth has been annexed to heaven. 
In my youthful days, before I had looked into 
international law, I one day asked Father 
Taylor, of the Seamen's Bethel, where in the 
Atlantic was the boundary within which the 
child is born an American citizen. His 
weather-beaten face lighted up with a smile 
that rippled from the center to the circum- 
ference, as he replied, " My boy, there is no 
such line in mid-ocean ; we own clear across." 
Locate heaven wherever you please, it 
stretches clear across to these earthly shores, 
and even takes in a slice, which Paul calls " The 
Heavenlies;" King James' version, ''heavenly 
places;" and Bishop Ellicott, " the heavenly 



234 Mile-Stone Papers. 

regions." This is nothing less than a high and 
serene Christian experience, in which the 
gracious Jesus manifests himself to the spirit- 
ual eye of the perfect believer, and he enjoys 
constant communion with the glorified Head 
of the Church through the Holy Spirit, which 
makes him " a habitation of God." 

The Heavenlies is that region called by 
Bunyan the land of Beulah, " clear out of 
sight of Doubting Castle," in the very sub- 
urbs of heaven, where the shining ones walk, 
and the gates of the celestial city are in full 
view, and the sun shines day and night all the 
year. Jesus had this land in view when he 
said he would send the Comforter to his dis- 
ciples, who would abide forever, and that the 
Son of God would manifest himself unto them, 
and the Father and the Son would make their 
permanent abode with them. 

This doctrine, that believing souls, still in 
the flesh, may dwell in The Heavenlies, is con- 
firmed by Dean Alford, who puts such souls 
into heaven itself. " Materially, we are yet in 
the body ; but in the Spirit, we are in heaven 
— only waiting for the redemption of the body 
to be entirely and literally there." 

" Though heaven's above and earth's below 

Yet are they but one state, 
And each the other with sweet skill 

Doth interpenetrate. 



In the He twenties. 235 

" Yea, many a tie and office blest, 

In earthly lots uneven, 
Hath an immortal place to fill, 

And is the root of heaven." — Faber. 

Stier, on Eph. i, 3, says : " The blessing 
with which God has blessed us consists and 
expands in all blessing of the spirit — then 
brings in heaven, the heavenly state in us, and 
us in it — then, finally, Christ, personally. He, 
himself, who is set and exalted into heaven, 
comes by the Spirit down into us, so that he 
is in us and we in him of a truth, and there- 
by, and in so far, we are with him in heaven." 
An old writer says that there are three heav- 
ens : coelum glorice, the heaven of glory ; ccelum 
naturcz, the heaven of nature ; and ccelum 
graticE, which we understand to be Paul's 
heaven of grace. 

Do Christians know that they need not die 
to know what heaven is, and that it is their 
glorious privilege to dwell there by dwelling 
in Christ, the perfect Saviour? At the fu- 
nerals of dead saints we sing : — 

" Where should the dying members rest 
But with their dying Head? " 

The rhythm will be just as charming, and the 
words will perfectly define the condition of 
living saints in full trust, if we mend the 
couplet, and sing :— - 

Where should the living members rest 
But with their living Head ? " 



236 Mile-Stone Papers. 

The citizens of The Heavenlies speak always 
u in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," 
the natural language of the fullness of the 
Spirit. Eph. v, 18, 19. 

But in Paul's last mention of The Heavenlies, 
(Eph. vi, 12,) he seems to dash all our theo- 
rizing into pieces by introducing infernal prin- 
cipalities and powers and wicked spirits, and 
by representing that there is a grand wrestling 
match going on there between these grimy 
fellows and the white-robed saints. How is 
this? Does not this spoil the beauty and 
mar the joys of the place ? What advantage, 
then, have The Heavenlies over The Earthlies, 
where so many professed Christians " grovel 
here below? " 

Good old Bengel here comes to our aid 
with a spiritual insight truly marvelous, and a 
hermeneutic gift almost divine, who is styled 
by John Wesley " that great light of the 
Christian world." Says he, " Even enemies, 
but as captives, may be in a royal palace and 
adorn it." When Jesus ascended "he led 
captivity captive." All who have risen and 
ascended with Him through sanctincation of 
the Spirit dwell where Satan is a captive, 
chained to the triumphal chariot of the Son of 
God. They wrestle with a fettered and hand- 
cuffed antagonist, and easily throw him in 
every contest. This is because they are 



In the Heavenlies. 237 

" strengthened with might by his Spirit in the 
inner man." 

While all dwellers amid The Earthlies are 
exposed to the devouring mouth of the roaring 
lion who runs at large there, those who live 

" Where dwells the Lord our Righteousness " 

are kept 

" In perfect peace 
And everlasting rest ; " 

for He has conquered Satan for them since 
He himself triumphed over him openly. Hear 
his paean of victory as he marched to the 
cross : " Be of good cheer : I have overcome 
the world." Well does Rutherford say : 
" Faith may dance because Christ singeth ; 
and we may come into the choir, and lift up 
our hoarse and rough voices, and chirp, and 
sing, and shout for joy with our Lord Jesus." 

Beautifully, indeed, does the same quaint 
writer express the gain which the believer may 
make out of the assaults of the tempter : " The 
devil is but a whetstone to sharpen the faith 
and patience of the saints. I know that he 
but heweth and polisheth stones all this time 
for the New Jerusalem." 

For the terms of admission into The Heav- 
enlies, see Eph. i, 3, 4. 



238 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER II. 

RIGHTS IN CHRIST. 

A RIGHT is that which justly belongs to 
one ; that which he may properly demand 
as his own. There is always a corresponding 
obligation on the part of all other persons to 
abstain from infringing this right. I have 
natural rights. By the will of my Creator I 
have a right to life, liberty, property, reputa- 
tion, marriage,* which may all be forfeited by 
the commission of a capital crime. To these 
natural rights the Oberlin theologians add that 
of redemption through Jesus Christ. For their 
fundamental principle, that " obligation keeps 
pace with ability," includes God, to whom 
this Scripture is alleged to be applicable : " To 
him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it 
not, to him it is sin." Hence, " No being, 
human or divine, can ever do more than his 
duty, because he can never transcend ability." f 
According to this doctrine God ought to 
redeem man if he can, and man has a natural 

*See Whewell's " Elements of Morality," vol. I. 
f Fairchild's " Moral Philsophy," p. 60 ; and Finney's 
"Systematic Theology," passim. 



Rights in Christ. 239 

right to redemption. We have not yet ac- 
cepted a doctrine which banishes grace from 
the universe, or reduces it to bare, cold right ; 
so we leave Oberlin to defend that doctrine, 
first boldly announced by that tongue which 
has just been palsied by death.* 

I have gracious rights. In Christ, by virtue 
of his atoning merit, all men are invested with 
rights as inalienable as the great natural rights 
enumerated above. These are, ability to re- 
pent, power to believe in Christ, pardon, 
adoption, the witness of the Spirit, regenera- 
tion, sanctification, and the glorification of the 
soul and body united in eternal life. These 
are all comprised in the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, the Paraclete, my right through Christ ; 
for even the saints' resurrection is " BECAUSE 
of his Spirit dwelling in you." Rom. viii, 11. 
(See critical Greek MSS.) 

The whole race will be raised because Jesus 
is the conqueror of death ; but there is an ad- ■ 
ditional reason why believers shall be raised. 
Their bodies have been temples of the Holy 
Spirit. 

These are not natural rights, inasmuch as 
they did not exist till purchased for me by Je- 
sus, my adorable Saviour. But now that his 
shed blood stands as the eternal price of my 
eternal redemption, through faith I am in- 

* Dr. Finney. 



240 Mile-Stone Papers. 

vested with a right to that redemption, and to 
all that is a requisite preparation for it. The 
Father, by solemn oath, has taken upon him- 
self the obligation to pardon, sanctify, and save 
eternally all who persistently claim their rights 
in Christ Jesus. This explains the transaction 
between the Father and the Son, alluded to by 
Jesus in his high-priestly address to the Father 
in John xvii, 2. A study of the original 
beautifully shows that the whole mass of hu- 
manity is intrusted to the Son for redemption, 
and that the Father has bound himself to give 
eternal life to all who claim their rights in 
Christ, or, in Scripture phrase, " as many as 
thou hast given him " through the drawings 
of the cross, freely yielded to under the sua- 
sives of the Holy Spirit. * From the very 
nature of rights, they cannot be forced upon a 
person against his will. He must freely ac- 
cept them or freely disclaim them. If the 
millionaire cannot divest himself of his money, 
then his money owns him instead of his owning 
the money. Gracious rights are always free. 
Constraint strikes at their very essence. 

Thus the poet Holmes compares the free 
agent who abuses his right, and the one who 
properly uses it, to two rain-drops falling side 
by side on the top of a mountain, the one 
running down the northward slope toward the 
* See Bengel's " Gnomon." 



Rights in Christ. 241 

polar regions, and the other coursing toward 
the sunny south. 

" So from the heights of will 

Life's parting stream descends, 
And, as a moment turns its slender rill, 

Each widening torrent bends. 

" From the same cradle's side, 
From the same mother's knee 
One to long darkness and the frozen tide, 
One to the peaceful sea ! " 

But, after all, am I not mistaken about my 
rights in Christ ? Have la " Thus saith the 
Lord" for this doctrine? See John i, 12, 
marginal reading : " But as many as received 
him, to them gave he the RIGHT to become 
the sons of God, even to them that believe on 
his NAME." Here our right to sonship and 
the name of Jesus are blessedly interlinked by 
our faith. " Blessed are they that do his 
commandments, that they may have RIGHT to 
the tree of life." Rev. xxii, 14. This implies a 
right of way to that tree of life, that sanctifica- 
tion of heart requisite for the inheritance of the 
saints in light. A kind father will not mock his 
son by giving him a title to a part of the home- 
stead, and then deny him all rightful access 
thereto. " If we confess our sins, he is faithful 
and JUST to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness." I John i, 9. Thus, 
in addition to the obligation of veracity ex- 
16 



242 Mile-Stone Papers. 

pressed in the adjective " faithful," there is the 
obligation of justice implied in the word 
"just," a jural term, involving obligations on 
God's part and rights on ours. It would be in- 
justice in God to withhold pardon and cleans- 
ing from a soul truly abhorring sin, and fleeing 
to the blood of sprinkling. 

" The pardon of sin," says an old English 
divine, " is not merely an act of mercy, but 
also an act of justice in God. Justice itself is 
brought over, from being a formidable adver- 
sary, to be our party, and to plead for us." 
President Edwards uses the following strong 
language : " The justice of God that [irrespect- 
ive of the atonement] required man's damna- 
tion, and seemed inconsistent with his salvation, 
now [having respect to the atonement] as 
much requires the salvation of those that be- 
lieve in Christ, as ever it before required their 
damnation. Salvation is an absolute debt to 
the believer on the ground of what his Surety 
has done." 

I. This fact of rights in Christ gives cogen- 
cy to the exhortation to accept him. A right 
must be claimed and exercised, or it will be 
lost forever. That investment in the savings- 
bank will be worthless to you if you never 
claim it. If your heirs are wiser than you, they 
may derive benefit from it. An unappro- 
priated Christ is no Saviour. All our rights in 



Rights in Christ. 243 

Christ may be forfeited by the capital offense — 
the sin against the Holy Ghost. 

2. The great value of the name of Jesus, 
and the necessity of prayer in that name. All 
our rights inhere in him. He has withdrawn 
his visible presence from our eyes, but, like a 
wise and benevolent king, he has left his sig- 
net ring behind him for the use of his cabi- 
net, so that the government can be adminis- 
tered as if present in person. The name of 
Jesus is his signet ring. I may stamp that 
name upon all my petitions, and secure that 
for which I pray. I must prevail in every 
suit in which I can identify myself with the 
glory of Jesus. When self asserts itself, and 
asks for any thing not for the glory of Christ, 
I cannot use the name of Jesus. Thus that 
name is at once the ground of my rights with 
God and the limit of these rights. Hence Je- 
sus' name is the only limit to the " whatso- 
ever " in John xvi, 23. Says Alford, " It was 
impossible, up to the time of the glorification 
of Jesus, to pray to the Father in his name. 
It is a fullness of joy peculiar to the dispensa- 
tion of the Spirit to be able so to do. Eph. 
ii, 18." How glorious the hour when Jesus 
transferred his precious signet ring to the hands 
of his disciples ! This was not at the beginning 
of his ministry, when he taught them the 
Lord's prayer, for his death had not yet 



244 Mile-Stone Papers. 

clothed his name with that peculiar power 
with which he is now invested. But in the 
last week of his earthly life, when within a 
step of the bloody cross, in anticipation of his 
glorification, he placed this precious deposit, 
this instrument of power, this long end of the 
lever that moves the very throne of the 
Father, in the hands of his disciples, saying, 
" Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my 
name ; ask and receive, that your joy may be 
full." This momentous hour has not suffi- 
ciently attracted the eye of the Church. The 
brilliancy of the other great events crowded 
into the last days of Christ's earthly history, 
the scenes of Gethsemane, Gabballia, and 
Calvary, the resurrection and ascension, have 
eclipsed this important moment with excessive 
light, as the Sun's splendors obscure the planet 
Mercury. O ye believers in Jesus, magnify 
the hour when he transferred to your hands 
his scepter of power in heaven and on the 
earth, saying, " Ask what ye will in my name, 
and it shall be done ! " 

Henceforth your sanctified will is to be a 
force which shall influence the moral govern- 
ment of God, and hasten the coming of the 
kingdom of Christ. Then no more think mean- 
ly of your privileges, yea, rather, your rights, 
conferred by your glorious Redeemer, who 
hath made you kings and priests unto God — 



Rights in Christ. 245 

kings, because he has given )»ou his throne by 
promise, and his signet ring by possession ; and 
priests, because you have the right of access 
in person into the holy of holies through the 
blood of Jesus. 

A half-starved old Indian once came into a 
frontier settlement, begging for food. He said 
that he had no money, but he had one thing 
about his person which he had carried for near- 
ly a half century. Being urged to exhibit his 
treasure, he drew from his bosom a small case 
of deer-skin, in which was found inclosed an 
honorable discharge from the Continental 
army, signed by George Washington. That 
name, so influential with the American people, 
this poor red man had carried, all ignorant of 
its potency to unlock the hearts of white 
men, and to prove his right to a pension. 
How many a hungry, fainting Christian is 
carrying the precious name of Jesus carefully 
folded in a napkin, instead of spreading it out 
before the throne of the Father as his prevail- 
ing plea for that fullness of the Spirit to which 
that name entitles him — a pension of grace 
here, and bounty lands in heaven hereafter! 

" Take the name of Jesus with you, 

Child of sorrow and of woe — 
It will joy and comfort give you ; 

Take it, then, where'er you go. 
Precious name, O how sweet ! 

Hope of earth and joy of heaven." 



246 Mile-Stone Papers. 

3. Appropriating faith. There is much 
energy wasted in asking for the fullness of the 
Spirit, which ought to be expended in simply- 
receiving. Believing is appropriating the 
general promises, and making them your own 
by asserting your right to them in the name 
of Jesus. The Comforter is already sent. 
Make room for him in your heart by a 
thorough consecration to Christ. Simple 
trust is the only door through which God can 
come into his temple, your heart. He cannot 
enter through your senses, because he is a 
Spirit ; nor through your reason, because it 
grasps only relations and not realities. Your 
faith alone can touch God, and unvail him 
to your spiritual perceptions. Then, and then 
only, does he really become your God. 

In this intuitive knowledge of God and of 
Christ is eternal life. John xvii, 3. Hence 
St. Paul says : " I count all things but loss for 
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ 
Jesus, my Lord." Charles Wesley is right in 
his estimate of the comparative worthlessness 
of all mere intellectual treasures: — 

" Other knowledge I disdain ; 

' Tis all but vanity ; 
Christ, the Lamb of God was slain — 

He tasted death for me." 

There is a time when prayer should give 
place to faith. Jesus said to the nobleman, 



Rights in Christ. 247 

"Go, thy son liveth." Continued prayer to 
Jesus to come down to Capernaum and heal 
the son, or to give a token that he would be 
healed, was now an impertinence and an act of 
disrespect to our Lord. There was only one 
honorable course — trust instead of repeated 
petition. The nobleman trusted when he had 
received the promise. Much more should 
believers trust for the abiding Comforter, see- 
ing that they have the promise of the Father, 
actually fulfilled in the Holy Ghost, urged 
upon their acceptance. All they are required 
to do is to receive him, to take the water of 
life freely ; not to pump, nor to draw with 
buckets. It is a fountain full and overflowing. 
It is the duty of the Jew not to pray for the 
Messiah to come, but to recognize the Naza- 
rene. It is the duty of the Christian, not to 
pray for the accomplished outpouring of the 
Spirit, but to accept the pentecostal gift, and 
thus honor the third Person of the Trinity, who 
has already inaugurated his dispensation. 

4. Boldness in our approach to the throne 
of grace is grounded on this knowledge of our 
rights in Christ. It is the lack of this that 
causes so many weak and wilted believers. 
They never prevail in prayer because they 
faint before they grasp the prize. They faint 
because they fail to discern and claim their 
rights in Christ Jesus. 



248 Mile-Stone Papers. 

They have not learned the meaning of this 
Wesleyan stanza: — 

" No condemnation now I dread, — 

Jesus, with all in him, is mine, 
Alive in him, my living Head, 

And clothed in righteousness divine, 
Bold I approach the eternal throne, 
And CLAIM the crown, through Christ, my own." 

Men will contend long for their natural 
rights. This is the spring of much of the 
heroism which illumines the pages of history. 
Could we impress the whole Christian Church 
with the assurance that in the name of Jesus 
they have each an individual right to the un- 
divided Comforter and Sanctifier, the Church 
would be suddenly transformed from a hospital 
to a band of conquering hejoes. Courage would 
throb in every heart, and vigor would nerve 
every arm. Every one would kneel a wrestling 
Jacob, and, confidently saying, 

" Speak, or thou never hence shall move, 
And tell me if thy name be Love," 

would rise a prevailing Israel, shouting, 

" 'Tis Love ! 'tis Love ! Thou diedst for me ; 
I hear thy whisper in my heart." 



The Indwelling Christ. 249 



CHAPTER III. 

FIVE YEARS WITH THE INDWELLING CHRIST. 

TT is the 17th of November, the anniversary 
of the spiritual manifestation of Jesus Christ 
to me as the perfect Saviour from all sin — an 
event transcending all others in my sojourn on 
the earth. To the salvation wrought on that 
day so long as I can move tongue or pen I 
must testify. Rather, I will testify. How 
sweet the constraining love of Christ, like a 
furnace-blast melting the "/ must " into the "/ 
will" duty into delight. This is the highest 
freedom possible in earth or heaven, when my 
will elects God's will with unspeakable glad- 

" I love thee so, I know not how 

My transports to control ; 
Thy love is like a burning fire 

Within my very soul." 

O, Lord Jesus, often during these five won- 
derful years have I wearied an unbelieving 
world and a half-believing Church with my at- 
testation of thy marvelous power to save. But 
all my utterances fail to express the greatness 



250 Mile-Stone Papers. 

and the blessedness of that glorious deliver- 
ance. I cannot compass in thought, much less 
in words, the immensity of thy love, an ocean 
without bottom or brim. I cannot tell the 
story, and I cannot let it alone. By thy grace, 
blessed Holy Ghost and abiding Comforter, I 
will not cease the attempt 

"Till this poor lisping, stammering tongue, 
Lies silent in the grave." 

And not then ; for I will then vie with Gabriel, 
and outsing him too, when I touch the strain 
which is not in all his creation anthem — Salva 
tion through the blood of the Lamb. During 
these cloudless, blissful years — dare I write it ? 
— my soul and body have been the abode of 
the indwelling Christ, consciously " the habita- 
tion of God through the Spirit." 

Pythagoras enjoined upon his disciples a 
five-years' novitiate of silence. It was a com- 
mandment easily kept, for the frigid Grecian 
philosophy had no secret which constrained 
utterance. But the love of Jesus, fully shed 
abroad in the heart by the blessed Carrier Dove 
of heaven, is a mystery that must be divulged. 
Silence is impossible. The lips of the fully in- 
itiated believer are unsealed, and words sweeter 
than Hymettian honey, which bedewed the lips 
of the infant Plato, flow forth. Plato could 
keep his " divine peradventures " till the next 



The Indwelling Christ. 251 

banquet of the philosophers ; but my divine 
assurances cannot be kept like the cold, imper- 
sonal abstractions of philosophy. Love must 
have a tongue. Love brooks no delay. 

" 'Tis love that drives my chariot wheels." 

So far as a page of limping words can com- 
pass the mighty theme, I essay the hopeless 
task of portraying the glory of the indwelling 
Christ, that his grace may be magnified, and all 
his people may invite him unto their hearts as 
a permanent inhabitant; for I cannot believe 
that my experience is necessarily exceptional. 
I should dishonor the boundless grace of God, 
and belittle his salvation, if I measured the 
possible in the attainments of the Church, by 
the actual. Results reached by one believer, 
while trusting the general promises of God's 
word, are possible to all, for there is no respect 
of persons with him. 

How Jesus, the adorable Saviour, has grown 
in my soul's estimation during these cloudless 
years ! What glories has his heart of love un- 
folded to me ! What raptures fill my heart 
when I see him reflected in the fourfold mirror 
of the Gospels, and follow his ascent into the 
highest heaven, carrying a human heart to the 
mediatorial throne ! Almost every week, and 
sometimes every day, the pressure of his great 
love comes down upon my heart in such meas- 



252 Mile-Stone Papers. 

ure as to make my brain throb, and my whole 
being, soul and body, groan beneath the strain 
of the almost intolerable plethora of joy. And 
yet amid this fullness there is a hunger for 
more, and amid the consuming flame of love 
the paradoxical cry is ever on my lips : — 

" Burn, burn, O love ! within my heart, 

Burn fiercely night and day, 
Till all the dross of earthly loves 

Is burned, and burned away." 

It is not strange that those great formulas of 
the Prayer Book, the Te Deum Laudamus, the 
Gloria in Excelsis, and the Creator Veni Spir- 
itus, which once seemed extravagant in their 
cumulation of titles ascribed to Christ and the 
Comforter, and tedious in their repetitions, 
have become the natural language of my soul 
in the constant glow of devotion, as they have 
been the canticles through which the Bride, for 
fifteen centuries, has poured out her love into 
the willing ear of her heavenly Bridegroom. 

How has my theology of the Holy Ghost 
lost its vagueness and taken on clearness and 
distinctness ! His personality and his offices 
in transfiguring believing souls are no longer 
dry dogmas, to be accepted on the authority of 
revelation, but are experimental verities, with- 
out which, I now clearly see, the Gospel would 
fail to transform a single soul. I begin to see 
a little way into the fathomless mystery of the 



The Indwelling Christ. 253 

Trinity, far enough to see that it is not revealed 
as a puzzle to confound reason and test faith ; 
but that it is of experimental and practical 
importance in the glorious Gospel of the Son 
of God. It has become as evident as the mid- 
day sun that he who would realize the most 
perfect transformation of divine love must, 
through faith, receive its outpouring from the 
Holy Spirit through Jesus, the appointed chan- 
nel from the Father's heart, a shoreless sea of 
love. 

" O blessed Trinity ! 

Holy, unfathomable, infinite, 

Thou art all life, and love, and light. 

Holy Trinity ! 

Blessed equal Three, 

One God, we praise thee." 

As I have gazed down into this fathomless 
ocean of truth and love, my soul has exulted 
in the fulfillment of the promise of Jesus to the 
loving and obedient heart that receives the 
Comforter, " My Father will love him, and WE 
will come unto him, and make our abode with 
him." 

In my previous Christian experience of 
twenty-eight years there always seemed to be 
a vacancy unfilled, a spot which the plowshare 
of the gospel had not touched. My nature 
had not been thoroughly subsoiled and thrown 
up to the light and warmth of the Sun of 
righteousness. I loved Jesus, studied his char- 



254 Mile-Stone Papers. 

acter with increasing admiration, and preached 
him with delight. But there was always a 
painful sense that my love was fractional, the 
response of only a part of my being, a meager 
tribute from the wealth of my capacity. I was 
often more enthusiastic in other things than in 
devotion to the King of glory, the adorable 
Jesus. Hence, when I surveyed the cross of 
Christ there was a feeling of self-reproach, a 
semi-condemnation for the feebleness of my 
gratitude and the faintness of my love. But 
the heavenly Tenant of my soul has changed 
all this. He has unlocked every apartment of 
my being, and filled and flooded them all with 
the light of his radiant presence. The vacuum 
has become a plenum. The spot before un- 
touched has been reached, and all its flintiness 
has melted in the presence of that universal 
solvent, 

" Love divine, all love excelling." 

I now wish that I had a thousand heart power 
to love, and a thousand tongue capacity to 
proclaim Jesus, the One altogether lovely, the 
complete Saviour, who " is able to save them 
unto the uttermost who come unto God by 
him." Nevertheless, I have the delicious as- 
surance that my present capacities, dwarfed as 
they are by former apathy and sin, are all filled 
to the brim with love to Christ and my fellow- 
men, and that every faculty is strained to its 



The Indwelling Christ. 255 

highest tension in his deligntful service. Bliss- 
ful, indeed, is the consciousness of the whole- 
ness of my love to Jesus, flowing from all the 
hidden fountains of my heart, like the Missis- 
sippi to the Gulf. "All my springs are in 
thee." O the indescribable sweetness of this 
perfect love, after many years of love painfully 
imperfect and divided ! What that void within 
was — what that untouched core of my being, 
whether it was selfishness, unbelief, original 
or inbred sin — I leave to the theologians to 
discuss. I aver that it was something very un- 
comfortable. Praise the Lord Jesus, it is gone, 
never to return. Joy did not go with it, but 
stays behind it. The Man of Calvary, the Son 
of God, treads all the avenues of my soul, fill- 
ing its emptiness, melting its hardness, cleans- 
ing its impurity, and pouring upon my head 

" The blessed unction from above, 
Comfort, life, and fire of love." 

My experience often reminds me of the 
results of integral calculus, namely : two kinds 
of quantities, constants and variables. The 
constants in my spiritual life are : — 

1. Salvation from doubt. I once walked 
much amid the shadows, having a streak of 
sunshine sandwiched with streaks of twilight, 
with occasionally darkness that could be felt. 
How changed is all this now, " through the 



256 Mile-Stone Papers. 

full assurance of understanding, the full assur- 
ance of faith, the full assurance of hope," the 
contents of which are that I am now and for- 
ever wholly the Lord's ! This assurance has 
not been interrupted for one moment for five 
years. This is the most astonishing triumph 
of grace over a temperament naturally melan- 
cholic, an introspecting, self-anatomizing, and 
self-accusing style of piety characteristic of my 
ancestry.* This magnifies the power of Jesus 
to save, more than any other aspect of my ex- 
perience. 

2. The death of personal ambition. To all 
desire of self-promotion and self-aggrandize- 
ment, to the glory of God's grace let it be said, 
I feel as dead as the autumn leaves beneath 
my feet as I tread the streets of Lynn on this 
gusty November day. It was different once. 
There was once a desire for the applause of 
men, a name resounding in the trumpet of 
fame. It was not inordinate and noticeable to 
my friends ; but it existed as an uneasy ten- 
ant of my bosom, the spring of many of my 
actions, and a motive mingling with all my as- 
pirations to serve God. But five years ago, this 
blessed day, an unalloyed spring of action, the 
motive power of unmingled love to Jesus and the 
race for which he shed his blood was fixed within 

* The writer is a lineal descendant, in the fourth genera- 
tion, of the father of David Brainerd, the missionary. 



The Indwelling Christ. 257 

by the Holy Spirit. It is no longer the old 
nature that lives, but Christ Jesus. That a 
resurrection of the self that has been crucified, 
dead, and buried for years is possible, I do not 
deny. I am not divining the future, but 
chronicling my footsteps in the past for the 
benefit of my fellow-believers — 

" Footprints, that perhaps another, 
Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
Seeing, shall take heart again." 

3. Perfect rest from all apprehension of fu- 
ture ill. Salvation from worry is no small 
thing, especially in the case of one whose views 
of life are strongly tinged with indigo. Fear 
and faith cannot keep house together. When 
one enters the other departs. I believe that 
Jesus, who is head over all things to his Church, 
has the programme of my best possible future, 
which involves these two elements: 1. His 
highest glory through me. 2. My highest 
happiness in him. It is the mission of the 
Comforter to lead me, step by step, through 
this programme, till Christ's ideal of my earthly 
life is fully realized. My only anxiety, moment 
by moment, is this : Am I now led by the 
Spirit of God? Just what the hidden plan of 
my future is, so long as it is the will of Jesus, 
is no concern of mine. The veil that hides it 
is woven by the fingers of Mercy. 
17 



258 Mile-Stone Papers. 

" 111 that he blesses is my good, 

And unblest good is ill ; 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 

If it be his sweet will !" 

4. Oneness with Christ, Eckhart's beggar 
saint, a poor, blind man, whose feet were torn 
and covered with dust, standing in rags by the 
way-side, rejoicing in Christ amid sunshine and 
rain, hunger and cold, was catechised by a 
learned man, seeking rest of soul. His last and 
hardest question was this : " But if God should 
cast thee into hell, what wouldst thou do?" 
He replied : " I should have two arms to em- 
brace him withal. One arm is true humility, 
and therewith am I one with his holy hu- 
manity. And with the other right- arm of love, 
that joineth his holy Godhead, I would em- 
brace him, so he must go with me into hell 
likewise. And so I would sooner be in hell 
and have God, than in heaven and not have 
him." I have no better words with which to 
express my sense of eternal oneness with 
Christ. He is not a capricious dweller in the 
temple of my heart, present to-day and absent 
to-morrow. He abides. Yet I have, as a free 
agent, the suicidal power of sundering that 
blissful union. 

5. Faith is a steady, living principle, in 
marked contrast with the isolated, spasmodic 
efforts of my former experience. It is as 



The Indwelling Christ. 259 

natural as breathing, and as unconsciously 
done. 

6. Love has been a well of water within, 
" springing up into everlasting life," instead of 
an intermittent brooklet, ice-bound in mid- 
winter, and dried up in midsummer. 

7. Peace, the legacy of Jesus, changes not. 

These constants all flow forth from the abid- 
ing Comforter, the indwelling Christ. But the 
following variables result from the leaky vessel 
into which the water of life is poured : — 

1. The joy of realization ebbs and flows. 
The very etymology of emotion indicates that 
it is always moving, waxing or waning. Still, 
what St. Paul styles " the joy of faith " is as 
permanent as faith itself. But above this occa- 
sionally roll the great tidal-waves of ecstatic 
joy, deluging the soul for days in succession. 
Under this mighty pressure of the heavenly 
world upon my poor throbbing heart I often 
feel that the earthen vessel will break under 
the strain, and that I shall die of very gladness. 

2. Agony for souls. It is a mercy that this 
is a variable experience. The Lord Jesus was 
in Gethsemane only a few hours, and even then 
he was strengthened by an angel. My occa- 
sional hours of intense burden and distress for 
souls are usually followed by the conversion or 
spiritual emancipation of some one among my 
people. I sometimes see hours in which I 



260 Mile-Stone Papers. 

would willingly die to save a soul from eternal 
death. Thankful as I am for these hours of 
sympathy with the suffering Saviour, I am 
grateful that they are hours, and not days nor 
years. " He knoweth my frame." 

3. Temptation. Satan's arrows fly thicker 
at times, but they strike upon my shield like 
spent shot, and fall harmless at my feet. As 
the years roll by their impact is more and more 
feeble, indicating that the vanquished foe is on 
the retreat, or, rather, that I am receding from 
his ambuscade, and nearing that sea of glass 
on which I shall exchange my shield for a harp 
of victory, forever beyond the range of Satan's 
fiery darts. This waning of his power in 
temptation is the normal Christian experience 
at its best estate. Abraham's greatest trial 
was in his old age, but it was from the Lord, 
and not from Satan. Job's grand duel with 
the tempter was in advanced life ; but so un- 
natural was this conflict at this time that 
Satan could not approach the confirmed saint 
of Uz till God had given him a special permit 
to pass the lines of " the angel of the Lord en- 
camping round about him." After the devil's 
threefold Waterloo defeat at the beginning of 
Christ's ministry, he left him " for a season." 
But none of the evangelists have chronicled 
the renewed attack. Is it not because the as- 
sault was so feeble that none of them noticed it ? 



The Indwelling Christ. 261 

Did not the sword of Apollyon so faintly fall 
upon the helmet of Jesus that the clash was 
heard by none of the twelve, not even by John, 
who leaned upon his bosom ? In Bunyan's 
Pilgrim the terrific combats with Satan all oc- 
cur early in the journey. By and by Christian 
reaches a land where these have entirely ceased, 
and " Doubting Castle is clear out of sight." 

4. Access in prayer and grasp upon the di- 
vine promises is a variable which we have not 
space to discuss ; nor 

5. The openings of the Scriptures under the 
apparently varying intensity of the Spirit's illu- 
mination, but really through some hidden law 
of my own mental and physical nature. But 
Jesus is no variable. 

"Changed, and not changed, Thy present charms, 

The past ones only prove ; 
O make my heart more strong to bear 

This newness of Thy love ! " 



262 Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FREEDOM. 

" O for freedom, for freedom in worshiping God, 
For the mountain-top feeling of generous souls, 

For the health, for the air, of the hearts deep and broad, 
Where grace, not in rills, but in cataracts, rolls ! " 

YX rHAT is the object of Faber's intense de- 
sire, breathed out in these words? Not 
what we call religious liberty, the right to wor- 
ship according to the dictates of conscience 
enlightened by the private interpretation of 
the Holy Scriptures. In ages forever gone by 
men wandered in exile, pined in dungeons, 
burned at the stake, or swung from gibbets, in 
the exercise of a right which Christian legisla- 
tion has in modern times secured to the people 
of nearly all lands. 

Nor does this eminent poet of the higher 
Christian life aspire after the liberty so much 
discussed by a past generation of theologians, 
the freedom of the will in its moral choices, 
the indispensable basis of accountability, called 
by the Germans formal freedom, in contrast 
with that real freedom for which this modern 
psalmist of the inward life longed so ardently. 
This real freedom is not a mere poetic fancy, 



Freedom. 263 

an angel flitting on airy pinions before the in- 
spired bard's eye, but never deigning to light 
on the earth and dwell in the abodes of men. 
Though men are as plenty as blackberries who 
assert that real freedom is not a citizen of this 
lower world, and that the fetters of doubt and 
fear and sin must gall every soul so long as it 
is in a mortal body, yet a few have actually 
received this heavenly visitant into their earth- 
ly habitation, and for years have communed 
with her in fellowship unspeakably blissful. 
These are not a favored few, capriciously se- 
lected for this great honor and greater joy. 
For on intimate acquaintance our celestial 
Guest is found to be cherishing no exclusive 
tastes and no personal preferences. We find 
that the design of formal freedom is to lead 
the entire human family to real freedom. 
Her failure in the case of multitudes must be 
charged to their stubbornness, and not to her 
partiality. 

Let us now take a philosophical view of 
these two kinds of freedom. Formal freedom, 
or free agency, is the power of choice between 
sin and holiness. The human will must have 
sufficient independency to originate sin, or it 
follows that it flows from the Divine causality. 
For sin is in this world as the result of some 
cause. Deny that the human will is a cause 
uncaused in its volitions, and you are left with 



264 Mile-Stone Papers. 

this dreadful alternative, God is the author 
of sin. 

But real freedom is the unrestrained acting 
out of one's own nature. Let children play 
together, and the girls take to dolls, and the 
boys to stilts, by a kind of inner necessity 
coiled up like a watch-spring in their natures, 
prompting them to act out these inherent op- 
positions and peculiarities of sex. When they 
thus act they are really free. Require them 
to change their parts and act contrary to na- 
ture, and real freedom is destroyed. The 
great poet, painter, or sculptor is so conscious 
that he is pervaded by a silent necessity of na- 
ture, called genius, that, looking back from the 
summit of his achievements, he feels that he 
could not have done otherwise. 

" But," says a fatalist, " could not Nero have 
set up the same plea for his crimes? Did not 
he simply act out his depraved nature ? And 
did he not inherit that nature from his wicked 
mother, Agrippina ? " Two considerations 
make Nero's wicked deeds different from 
Michel Angelo's innocent spontaneities. Nero, 
though acting out a bad nature, was conscious 
of formal freedom — the power to put forth 
virtuous acts. Secondly, if he had listened to 
the preaching of Paul, his prisoner, he would 
have found out that there is present to every 
depraved soul a power to change character it- 



Freedom. 265 

self from depravity to holiness. That moral 
act is really free which expresses unconstrain- 
edly the moral condition of the agent, what- 
ever it may be. Nero had so hardened his 
heart and seared his conscience that there was 
no inward hinderance to his monstrous crimes. 
He had real freedom in sinning. But he might 
have believed in Jesus Christ so perfectly as 
to be emancipated from the dominion, yea, 
the existence, of every native, depraved im- 
pulse, so that acts of holiness would have 
flowed freely and spontaneously from his will. 
He might have had real freedom in righteous- 
ness. This is what Jesus means when he 
says, " If the Son, therefore, make you free, ye 
shall be FREE INDEED." 

An inspection of the ordinary sinner's moral 
state reveals a collision of inward forces, a 
sense of obligation to the moral law, involving 
a consciousness of freedom to obey, and a 
drift of nature in the opposite direction, to- 
ward sin. Hence the moral phenomenon in 
the seventh chapter of Romans. Real freedom 
can be realized by the complete annihilation 
of one of these forces. Erase the feeling of 
moral obligation, and you have an extraor- 
dinary sinner who has passed beyond the 
limit of hope. Eradicate the inherent tend- 
ency to depravity, by perfecting the love of 
God within, and you have a real freeman in 



266 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Christ Jesus. Hence, the inference is irresist- 
ible, that sin, the cause of inward strife and 
conflict, cannot belong to the true nature of 
man, and that the entire exclusion of sin is 
necessary to that spontaneous and unimpeded 
action of his will which is called real freedom. 
Entire sanctification is identical with perfect 
liberty. 

"And He hath breathed into my soul 

A special love of Thee, 
A love to lose my will in his, 

And by that loss be free." 

Thomas a Kempis agrees with Faber when 
he says, " My son, thou canst not have per- 
fect liberty unless thou wholly renounce thy- 
self. They are but in fetters, all who merely 
seek their own interest and are lovers of them- 
selves. Keep this short and complete saying : 
' Forsake all, and thou shalt find all. Leave 
concupiscence, and thou shall find rest.' " 

Formal freedom is an inherent attribute of 
man, but real freedom is the gift of Christ, in- 
asmuch as it is the outflow of the new nature, 
the creation of the Holy Ghost. " Where the 
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." It is 
obedience from an inner impulse, spontaneous 
and free. It is a perfect similarity of feeling 
with God in all our moral choices and in all 
the sources of our delight. It is not a free- 
dom from the law as a rule of life, (antinomian- 



Freedom. 267 

ism,) but as the ground of justification and the 
impulse to service. We keep the law uncon- 
sciously, not from dread of its penalties, but 
from love to the Lawgiver, by a glad assent, 
as naturally as water runs down hill. In fact, 
the soul saved to the uttermost, and filled with 
the Sanctifier, like the body of the risen Jesus, 
has lost its earthward attraction, and gravitates 
upward, having passed the center of gravity 
between sin and holiness, earth and heaven. 
See Col. iii, 1-3. 

Here we encounter the objection, that the 
formal freedom of such a soul must have 
ceased, being merged in the real freedom which 
it has attained. It must be admitted that these 
two seem to destroy each other, so that when 
real freedom belongs to a man formal freedom 
must be denied to him. The Scriptures seem 
to teach the same doctrine. " Whosoever is 
born of God doth not commit sin : for his 
seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, be- 
cause he is born of God." I John iii, 9. This 
seems to teach that the soul once born of God 
has lost its freedom to sin, and passed beyond 
the perils of probation. A careful reading of 
this text, attending to the tenses, affords much 
light. W T hosoever has been born of God and 
so continues (perfect tense) is not sinning ; for 
his seed (the new principle of love to God) is 
remaining in him, and he is not able to be 



268 Mile-Stone Papers. 

sinning, (present tense indicating a state, not 
an act,) because he has been born of God and 
so remains. The incompatibility of the two 
states, of permanent sonship and habitual sin- 
ning, is here denied, and not the impossibility 
of a loss of sonship by a lapse into sin. So long 
as the soul fully cleaves unto God it incapaci- 
tates itself for sinning. Nevertheless, formal 
freedom still underlies this real freedom of a 
holy soul, and it may, at any time, while in 
probation, come to the surface in an evil 
choice, if faith should relax its hold on God, as 
in the case of the angels who fell from their 
first or probationary estate, and of Adam and 
Eve, who fell from their innocency. Why such 
beings should sin is an insoluble mystery ; but 
really it is no greater than the mystery of sin 
going on around us to-day. Sin is unreason. 
To give a good reason for it is to justify it. 

The highest estate we can reach in proba- 
tion is the posse non peccare, ability not to sin. 
In the state of the just made perfect we shall at- 
tain the non posse peccare, inability to sin, real 
taking the place of formal freedom. On the 
other hand, every impenitent sinner, by steadily 
diminishing his moral capacity to resist sin, is 
approaching that awful state of final perma- 
nence of sinful character, non posse non peccare, 
inability to abstain from sinning, his formal 
freedom being engulfed in a real and eternal en- 



Freedom. 269 

slavement of the will to sin, in which he has 
real freedom to sin and not from sin. The 
glorified saint has real freedom from sin and 
not to sin. Both are still conceptually free 
agents, responsible for their acts. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the terms free, 
freeman, and liberty > in the New Testament, 
have no reference at all to formal freedom, or 
free agency, but solely to the real freedom be- 
stowed by the Lion of Judah when, through 
entire sanctification, he breaks every chain. 
This is the only liberty worth mention in the 
estimation of the Holy Spirit. All who pos- 
sess only formal freedom are the bondmen of 
sin tyrannizing over them. This renders them 
accountable to God, and, if properly used, is 
the stepping-stone to freedom in Christ. 

Another instructive fact disclosed in the 
study of this subject is, that real freedom is 
often expressed as the most complete enslave- 
ment to God. This indicates that freedom 
from sin is at the same time perfect submission 
to God. Hence the evangelical paradox in 
1 Cor. vii, 22, where " the Lord's freeman is 
Christ's servant," and in I Pet. ii, 16, where 
the free are exhorted to use their liberty as 
the servants or slaves of God. Thus the 
highest freedom is the most perfect bondage. 
The loftiest ideal of liberty is realized when 
the human will is completely enthralled by the 



270 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Divine will. Amid these apparent contradic- 
tions is the wrestling ground of faith. Thanks 
be unto God, " we who have believed do en- 
ter into rest," the glorious rest of a perfect 
freedom from doubt and worry, and fear and 
sin, actual and original. 

It is the concurrent testimony of all ad- 
vanced believers, that they have passed the 
point where Christian duties are performed as a 
task, and have emerged into the region where 
service is spontaneous and unconstrained. 
This point is identical with the experience of 
perfect love. Up to that hour there is a con- 
sciousness of what the German theologians 
call formal freedom ; but after that glorious 
event there is an experience of real freedom. 
The difference between these is, that in the 
former there is an absence of all outward co- 
ercion ; in the latter, the last vestige of con- 
straint from within ourselves, from the resist- 
ance or inertia of self, has disappeared, and our 
will is in delightful harmony with the will of 
God. This transition can never be reached on 
the plane of nature. As an eagle cannot out- 
soar the atmosphere, so self-will cannot tran- 
scend itself. The work is divine. This our 
adorable Saviour plainly declares when he 
says : " If the Son therefore make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed!' This perfect freedom is 
rarely, if ever, experienced at the first espousal 



Freedom. 271 

to Christ. There is not a complete emancipa- 
tion from the constraint of the law, which is 
our paidagogos, or child-leader, to bring us to 
Christ. Fear mingles with love — servile or 
tormenting fear. The timid soul clings to the 
rough hand of the child-leader for protection, 
even after he has come to the crucified Christ. 
In other words, there is more or less legalism 
in his service. The critics tell us that the 
marginal reading of Rom. vii, 6, has by far the 
best manuscript authority : " But now we have 
been delivered from the law, having died to 
that wherein we were held, so that we serve in 
the newness of the Spirit, and not in the old- 
ness of the letter." This death of the believer 
unto the law must be twofold: first, as the 
ground of acceptance by reason of his perfect 
obedience. The penitent sinner in this sense 
dies to the law when he abandons the plea of 
perfect obedience, and relies only on the blood 
of Christ, and obtains justification by faith. 
A second step brings him into perfect free- 
dom. This is when love toward the Lawgiver 
is so fully shed abroad in the heart as to effect 
a perfect release from the fear of the law as a 
motive to obedience. This takes place when 
the Holy Spirit fills the soul, and exhibits 
Jesus to the eye of faith as " the One altogether 
lovely," and gives an assurance of his love to 
me so strong as to exclude doubt, and to 



272 Mile-Stone Papers. 

awaken love toward him responsive to his 
mighty love. Duty is transformed into de- 
light. Prayer, praise, confession, and sacrifice, 
are now spontaneous. Love knows no burdens 
in the service of its object. The law still re- 
mains as the rule of life and the measure of 
sin, but it is divested of its terrors. " Who is 
he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, 
yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at 
the right hand of God, who also maketh inter- 
cession for us." Thus in justification the be- 
liever's emancipation from the law is initiated ; 
in the fullness of love it is completed. 

Service without servility is beautifully illus- 
trated by the Levitical law relating to the re- 
lease of the Hebrew servant on the seventh 
year. Exod. xxi, 2-6. If, through love to his 
master, or to his own wife and children, he re- 
fused to go out free, his ear was to be attached to 
the door-post by means of an awl, symbolizing 
the fact that henceforth that slave was a fix- 
ture — a part of his master's real estate, as 
much as the tiles nailed to his roof. But what 
about the service after this ceremony? Was 
it hesitating, irksome, or constrained ? Only 
consider that he is a slave forever ! Is not this 
alone enough to darken all his skies and be- 
cloud all his prospects? Who can cheerfully 
abide the thought of living and dying in bond- 
age? Every one who has discovered the 



Freedom. 273 

precious secret that service to God is the high- 
est style of freedom. The ear-bored servant, 
then, illustrates the highest liberty of which 
man is capable. Hence in Psa. xl, 8, the Mes- 
siah is personified as saying, " I delight to 
do thy will, O my God ! yea, thy law is within 
my heart." But the figure which sets forth the 
perfection of his obedience in a most striking 
manner is in these words, " Mine ears hast 
thou opened " — digged or bored : I am fettered 
by the willing bond of love. God's will was his 
choice. 

" This was the end, the blessed rule, 

Of Jesus' toils and tears ; 
This was the passion of his heart 

Those three and thirty years." 

This explains the seeming contradiction in 
Psa. cxvi, 16 : " O Lord, truly I am thy servant, 
(or slave ;) thou hast loosened my bonds." 
The number of those who understand this 
blessed paradox is daily increasing. The 
identity of the highest freedom with the most 
unreserved surrender of self to God is their 
blissful experience. When " the sweet will of 
God " is the taskmaster of a soul brimful of 
love to Jesus, the exultant believer can warble 
this grateful song to the divine will : — 

" And he hath breathed into my heart 

A special love for thee ; 
A love to lose my will in his, 

And by that loss be free." 
18 



274 Mile-Stone Papers. 

The true doctrine of the final perseverance 
of the saints is wrapped up in this idea. It is 
not founded on the Creator's act of uncon- 
ditional election from eternity, but upon the 
joint election of the creature and his Creator ; 
on the ground of service and character fore- 
seen and approved by God, and his everlasting 
dominion deliberately chosen by man. " Elect 
according to the foreknowledge of God the 
Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, 
unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of 
Jesus Christ." Then he becomes an ear-bored 
servant. He has passed the point of equal 
attraction between self and God, and now and 
for evermore gravitates upward. To him, and 
him alone, belongs this confident challenge, 
"Who shall separate us from the love of 
Christ?" 

"But this I do find, 
We two are so joined, 
He'll not live in glory 
And leave me behind." 

The crucifixion of self and the full inspira- 
tion of the Christ-life have laid a blessed par- 
alysis upon the centrifugal tendencies of the 
soul. 

" Now rest, my long-divided heart ; 
Fixed on this blissful center, rest." 

Charles Wesley in many of his hymns has 
expressed the same thought, not as a mere 



Freedom. 275 

poetic fancy, but as a glorious experimental 
reality : — 

" Jesus, thine all-victorious love 

Shed in my heart abroad ; 
Then shall my feet no longer rove., 
Rooted and fixed in God." 

Still stronger is the couplet beginning the 
last stanza of this hymn : — 

" My steadfast soul, from falling free, 
Shall then no longer move." 

But in his " Wrestling Jacob," that life-like 
portrait of a struggling and victorious soul, the 
same truth appears in still stronger terms: — 

" Nor have I power from thee to move, 
Thy nature and thy name is Love." 

Such a soul has occasion for watchfulness to 
know the Master's will, to penetrate the celes- 
tial guise in which Satan sometimes appears, 
and to guard all the innocent sensibilities 
against excessive action. While all the forces 
of St. Paul's soul, fused by the fire of love, 
were flowing Christward in one molten stream, 
he kept under his body, lest he should be a 
castaway. In this respect he counted not him- 
self as already perfect, but he was pressing 
forward, if by any means he " might attain unto 
the resurrection of the dead." But in joyful 
service, without the least trace of servile feel- 



276 Mile-Stone Papers. 

ing, in the fullness of his love toward Christ 
excluding all antagonistic forces, he says, " Let 
us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded." 
Phil, iii, 8-21. 

Service without servility constitutes the pe- 
culiar and glorious feature of the new covenant. 
The old covenant was an outside, coercive 
force, a law written in stone ; the new covenant 
is written on the heart, rectifying and inspiring 
all the springs of action. See Heb. viii, 8-12, 
where, instead of the external obligation en- 
tailing bondage to the letter, will be found the 
new motive to obedience, the inward power 
of a divinely implanted knowledge of God's 
will, and perfect delight therein, forming a new 
and blissful bond between the Lord and his 
people. 

In the great problem of Lenity and Law 
which is solved by the atonement, Law is not 
set aside or cheated out of its demands. Christ 
came not to destroy, but to fulfill, the moral 
law. He not only magnified it by his ex- 
piatory sacrifice ; but by the Holy Spirit he 
transfers it from the table of stone to the table 
of the heart, putting it inside the will, so that 
it is no longer a yoke upon the neck, but a free, 
spontaneous, and delightful choice. When 
God fulfills the promise of the new covenant, 
" I will put my law in your heart," the emanci- 
pated child of God can then joyfully appropri- 



Freedom. 277 

ate the words of the Son of God, "Lo, I come 
to do thy will, O God." When the Law is 
thus incorporated in us we unconsciously keep 
its precepts. 

This Scripture abundantly proves that this 
blessing is not limited to a privileged few, but 
is attainable by all believers, " from the least 
unto the greatest." The same truth is ex- 
pressed by St. Paul when he says : " Where 
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
And only there. Yet this very apostle, who 
was evidently filled with the Spirit, and con- 
sequently lived in the atmosphere of real soul 
freedom, in eveiy epistle styles himself, as his 
highest title, " the doulos, or slave, of Jesus 
Christ." 

How beautifully and concisely does St. 
James state the doctrine of this article in 
five words, " the perfect law of liberty ; " the 
term " law " implying rightful authority, and 
" liberty" implying an obedience spontaneous 
and free, while the term " perfect " expresses 
the infinite superiority of the New Testament 
to the Old, inasmuch as the Old rested on the 
law with foregleams of the promise, and the 
New records the glorious fulfillment, the jubi- 
lee of liberty regulated by the law of love. 

What a change would the Church present, 
should this feature of the new covenant be- 
come the universal experience of the members! 



278 Mile-Stone Papers. 

All the general rules regulating the life, all the 
requirements of the Discipline respecting at- 
tendance upon the means of grace, would 
immediately become a dead letter, not through 
universal neglect, but by reason of an inward 
spirit of obedience diffused through the entire 
body of Christ. This is the aim of the so- 
called higher-life movement: not to engraft 
something new upon Christianity, but fully to 
inaugurate the new covenant in the hearts of 
professed Christians, inspiring to the willing 
service of God, not from the impulse of fear, 
but from the inspiration of love. 

Greater than the liberation of thirty-eight 
million Russian serfs, and the emancipation of 
four million African slaves in America, is the 
work of striking the spiritual fetters from 
nominal Christendom, and lifting up the un- 
counted hosts of these groaning bondmen to 
the condition of rejoicing freemen in Christ 
Jesus. To enforce the decree of emancipation 
in Russia the emperor appointed fifteen hun- 
dred extraordinary justices of the peace ; and 
to effect the same purpose in the United 
States many thousands of agents, civil and 
military, were employed. Is it any thing 
strange that Jesus, the great emancipator, 
not content with the issue of his proclama- 
tion of a release to all enthralled souls, 
should commission extraordinary agencies for 



Freedom. 279 

the execution of his beneficent purpose ? All 
hail, then, to every messenger that bears 
upon his tongue the glad evangel of a full 
salvation, and the welcome news of a service 
to Christ without servility, and with joy un- 
speakable and full of glory. It is not enough 
that the divine decree of emancipation is 
printed in the Bible, God's statute book ; it 
must be heralded abroad by human tongues, 
exemplified in human lives, and enforced by 
the divine Spirit. Hence Charles Wesley 



" The truth that makes us free indeed, 
We cannot leam it from our creed. 

The truth that sanctifies, 
To bring us faith, returns from heaven, 
And, Father, Son, and Spirit given, 

Conducts us to the skies." 



28o Mile-Stone Papers. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SIXTH MILE-STONE. 

/^)N this ever-memorable day, November 
17th, 1876, I pass the sixth mile-stone in 
the highway of holiness. Should I refrain 
from the utterance of praise to the Lord Jesus, 
the King of glory, to God the Father, and to the 
blessed Comforter, the stones beneath my feet 
would cry out. It may interest no one to listen 
to my thanksgiving anthem, yet I must pour it 
out into the ear of my adorable Saviour whether 
men will hear or whether they will forbear. 
The great Physician who hath wrought in me 
a perfect cure shall have my testimonial as 
long as I have a tongue to utter or a hand to 
write and rewrite the wondrous story. Why 
not be content with past testimonies ? Where 
is the wife who is content with last year's 
avowals of love whispered into the ear of her 
husband ? If she is to be found on the earth, 
you will hear no song as you near her thresh- 
old, you will be illumined with no smile when 
you come into her presence. For there is no 
joy where there is no love, and love begins to 
die when it becomes dumb. The wife who 



The Sixth Mile-Stone. 281 

lives this year without renewed confessions of 
tender affection will be found next year in 
the court-house suing for a divorce. Six 
years ago my soul became the bride of Christ 
by an inexpressibly blissful union. Was I an 
enemy of Jesus up to that time ? I was during 
twenty-eight years a servant, a friend, and a 
son. There is a gradation of amicable rela- 
tions between an enemy and a spouse. Small 
Christian philsophers usually overlook this 
fact when they assert that there is no sharply- 
defined transition in Christian experience after 
justification. 

Another reason why continual testimonials 
to the mighty Healer of my soul are de- 
manded is because each successive year 
demonstrates more and more clearly the com- 
pleteness and permanency of the cure. Time 
magnifies the keeping power of Christ. Testi- 
mony on this point must be constant, lest 
silence be misinterpreted. If another apology 
for repeated testimony by the same witness is 
needed, let it be found in the sad fact that 
such testimonies to the perfect saving power 
of our Immanuel are relatively few. The 
vast mass of Christian professors, in the 
words of Bishop Thomson, " like the rivers 
emptying into the Artie Sea, are frozen over 
at the mouth." These things ought not so 
to be. 



282 Mile-Stone Papers. 

" Jesus is God ! If on the earth 

This blessed faith decays, 
More tender must our love become, 

More plentiful our praise." 

Finally, to all my friends disposed to 
criticise the publication to the heartless world 
of the sacred secrets of the heart's intercourse 
with Jesus, the celestial Bridegroom, let me 
say that I find the most exquisite delight in 
exalting the King of glory, and, with the Vir- 
gin Mother of my Lord, warbling my Magnifi- 
cat in the ear of the universe. Luke i, 46-55. 
While some seek for joy in quest of gold, or 
fame, or lore, let me crave the boon I most 
desire on earth, the privilege of proclaiming 
trumpet-tongued, Jesus, mighty to save. For 
the benefit of all who are living where so 
many years of my own Christian experience 
were spent, in a dry and thirsty land, let me 
say that there is a " place of broad rivers and 
streams," where 

" Grace, not in rills, but in cataracts, rolls." 

From this goodly land I have no desire to 
return to the Sahara from which I have 
happily escaped ; yet I will send to " my com- 
rades in the wilderness" frequent reports of 
my explorations of this new continent. Every- 
thing here is on a magnificent scale : — 

" There's a wideness in God's mercy, 
Like the wideness of the sea." 



The Sixth Mile-Stone. 283 

There is a constant sense of the immensity 
of God's love — an ocean poured down upon 
the earth in the unspeakable gift of Jesus 
Christ, and in the boundless provisions of 
grace, culminating in the gift of the abiding 
Comforter and Sanctifier. Blessed Jesus! 

" There's not a craving in the mind 

Thou dost not meet and still ; 
There's not a wish the heart can have 

Which thou dost not fulfill." 

This view of the riches of grace in Christ 
Jesus awakens the liveliest commiseration for 
the thirsty multitudes of worldlings, and the 
scarcely less pitiable host of nominal Chris- 
tians, vainly digging in the sand for a few 
drops of brackish water, while whole Lake 
Superiors of sweet, cool and lively waters are 
flashing in the sun all around as far as the eye 
can reach. 

" Would that they knew what Jesus is, 

And what untold abyss, 
Lies in love's simple forwardness 

Of more than earthly bliss ! " 

Thus the soul has its joyful and its sorrow- 
ful side : the side turned toward Jesus is a 
hemisphere of light and warmth ; the side 
which looks out toward the countless procession 
of the unsaved, tramping ceaselessly down to 
death, is a hemisphere of shade. " Sorrowful, 
yet always rejoicing." 



284 Mile-Stone Papers. 

I wish to testify most emphatically that the 
love of Christ shed abroad in the heart by the 
abiding Comforter has wonderfully refined and 
intensified all lawful pleasures. Jesus drops un- 
speakable sweetness into every cup of earthly 
bliss. This unexpected heightening of inno- 
cent enjoyments was hidden from me for many 
years in the unappropriated promise that 
Christ would " do exceeding abundantly above 
all that we ask or think." For six years there 
has been not. only a new heaven above, but a 
new earth beneath, strewn with flowers, and 
filled with springs bubbling with the purest 
joys. 

The society here is very select. Faith, 
Hope, Peace, Quietude, Resignation, Victory, 
and Assurance here make their constant 
homes, while Joy, Gladness, Rejoicing, and 
Exultation have their summer residence here, 
and the summer lasts nearly all the year. The 
Italian atmosphere of this region is too trans- 
parent for Doubt to live in. Guilt and Fear 
and Worry and Discontent have never mi- 
grated to this cheerful clime. Temptation 
makes an occasional incursion, but he acts as 
if he feels that he is an outlaw. 

There are old residents of this country who 
are by no means favorites with me, and I cut 
their acquaintance as much as possible, such as 
Ignorance, Forgetfulness, Misjudgment, Error, 



The Sixth Mile-Stone. 285 

Inadvertence, Failure, and a large family by 
the name of Infirmity. In fact, I have re- 
peatedly cast my vote for their exclusion, but 
they insist that they have a right to remain, 
since no statute lies against them. They say 
that they are grossly wronged when con- 
founded with an odious foreigner called Sin, 
who slightly resembles them in external ap- 
pearance, but is wholly different in moral 
character. I must confess that a close obser- 
vation, extended through several years, demon- 
strates the justice of this plea. Hence I live 
in peace with these old citizens, but do not 
delight in their society. 

But I hear some one inquire, " Have you 
perfect satisfaction ? Is every craving of your 
soul filled ? " Yes. No. My present capacity 
for the love of God is filled, but so precious is 
the treasure that I am coveting a vessel a 
thousand times larger. Hence with Charles 
Wesley I daily exclaim : — 

" Insatiate to this spring I fly ; 

I drink, and yet am ever dry ; 

Ah ! who against thy charms is proof? 

Ah ! who that loves can love enough ? " 

Hence the paradoxical condition of satiety 
and hunger. 

This must ever be the experience of a being 
capable of progress. In this respect I count 



286 Mile-Stone Papers. 

myself as well off in my heaven below as I 
shall be in my heaven above. Dr. Doddridge 
had a clear insight into this subject when he 
wrote thus to a friend : " To allow yourself 
deliberately to sit down satisfied with any im- 
perfect attainments in religion, and to look up- 
on a more confirmed and improved state of it 
as what you do not desire — nay, as what you 
secretly resolve that you will not pursue — is 
one of the most fatal signs we can well im- 
agine, that you are an entire stranger to the 
first principles of it." 

Almost daily Fletcher's prayer is on my lips, 
" Lord, enlarge the vessel." 

" With gentle swiftness lead me on, 

Dear Christ, to see thy face ; 
And, meanwhile, in my narrow heart 

O, make thyself more space ! " 

With what wonderful delight do I preach 
the unsearchable riches of Christ ! The stairs 
that lead to my pulpit are more inviting to my 
feet than the ivory steps of earth's mightiest 
throne. 

I am in full sympathy with Payson's declara- 
tion, that he had rather a man would eat his 
dinner for him than preach his sermon for 
him. 

Especially am I drawn toward the members 
of the Church, multitudes of whom need some 



The Sixth Mile-Stone. 287 

one to travail in birth again for them, until 
Christ be formed within them. Nominal 
Christians are the greatest obstacle to the ad- 
vance of the kingdom of heaven. I long to 
show unto them the beauty of Christ in such 
a light that they will be drawn into entire de- 
votion to him. Doubting souls awaken the 
deepest sympathy in me, having myself long 
suffered from this cause, until Jesus wrought a 
complete cure. To such I have a special mis- 
sion. 

" I know not what it is to doubt 
My heart is ever gay." 

I have made the great discovery that all 
the foundations laid in the Bible are for faith. 
In that whole blessed volume there is not so 
much as one peg to hang a legitimate doubt 
upon. Legitimate, did I say? There is no 
such thing possible in the case of an honest 
man who owns a New Testament. By an 
honest man I mean one who is willing to follow 
wherever the truth leads. Doubt has its root 
in an unwilling heart. 

" But what is your experience," says one, 
" respecting the possibility of living year after 
year without condemnation for sin ? " To 
glorify Jesus, I must say that my soul a wit- 
ness is, that the petition in the Te Deum 
Landamus, " Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us 
this day without sin," is a prayer for a blessing 



288 Mile-Stone Papers. 

attainable for three hundred and sixty-five 
days in the year, and in leap year three hun- 
dred and sixty-six. Why should it be deemed 
impossible for God to keep the fully trusting 
soul? 

Is it strange that a soul all aglow with love 
to the Lawgiver should feel no inclination to 
violate the law ? Perfect love is an infallible 
cure of sinning. Hence it is a synonym for 
entire sanctification. " But do you not have 
many evil thoughts come into your head ? " A 
thousand thoughts of evil come in and go out 
again. " In all this Job sinned not." 

The mental conception of an evil act is not 
sinful. Sin is conceived in the voluntary na- 
ture. Rev. Joseph Cook, in one of his recent 
Monday lectures in Tremont Temple, asserted 
that sin is known by intuition, that all intui- 
tive ideas are self-evident, necessary, and uni- 
versal, and that the voluntary element in sin, 
as an act, has these three characteristics. To 
this statement we must heartily subscribe. 
The will, the capital power of the soul, may 
be so energized and sanctified as to stand a. c a 
flint against sin. In this sublime attitude 
stood that strongest human will, the will of 
the Man of Nazareth. Thus victorious may all 
his followers stand, " kept by the power of 
God through faith." " Be of good cheer ; I 
have overcome the world." 



Seven Sabbatic Years. 289 



CHAPTER VI. 

SEVEN SABBATIC YEARS. 
NOV. 17, 1870. Nov. 17, 1877. 

" On this glad day the glorious Sun 

Of righteousness arose ; 
On my benighted soul he shone, 

And filled it with repose. 

" Sudden expired the legal strife ; 

'Twas then I ceased to grieve ; 
My second, real, living life 

I then began to live." 

THE chief characteristic of the seven past 
years of my Christian life is soul-rest, 
running through every day and hour, like a 
golden thread. " For we which have be- 
lieved do enter into rest." Since there are 
many misconceptions respecting this rest, I 
wish to testify to my own experience in this 
regard : 

i. It is not a cessation from Christian activi- 
ties, and a sitting down in the chimney-corner, 
with folded arms, enjoying the dreamy ecstasy 
of a mystical devotion. Instead of this, I find 
in this soul-rest an amazing stimulus to unre- 
mitting effort to glorify Christ in the salvation 



290 Mile-Stone Papers. 

of all for whom he died, and especially in the 
perfect restoration of those believers who are 
only partially healed of the malady of sin. 

" Rest is not quitting the busy career ; 
Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere. 
'Tis loving and serving the highest and best ; 
'Tis onward unswerving, and that is true rest." 

2. I do not find it an exemption from spir- 
itual conflict and temptation. Christ's three- 
fold Waterloo battle and victory occurred only 
a few days after the descent of the Holy Spirit 
at his baptism. Intense spiritual illumination 
is one of the conditions under which a great 
spiritual field-fight is possible. Pickets may 
skirmish a little in the dark, but armies shake 
the earth with their thunders only in the day- 
light. Many Christians do not enjoy religion 
enough to be the subjects of a downright spir- 
itual struggle. But after sunrise Satan un- 
limbers his biggest guns. Thank God, he may 
be so thoroughly beaten before breakfast, in 
the first onset, that his assaults will be feeble 
all the rest of the day, not daring to take the 
field in person, but sending some ugly " mes- 
senger to buffet " the soul. 

3. Nor is this rest a release from the bur- 
den of souls unsaved and unsanctified. In 
fact, in my years of spiritual unrest my own 
soul was my greatest burden, leaving me little 



Seven Sabbatic Years. 291 

time or strength to devote to others. But 
now that I have 

" A heart at leisure from itself 
To soothe and sympathize," 

I find myself drawn away from the unprofitable 
and unhappy self-introspection and medication 
of my own ailments to the unalloyed bliss of 
ministering the healing balm to the wounded 
and dying souls about me. I have been 
brought into deep sympathy with Paul in his 
willingness to be accursed from Christ ; that is, 
to make an additional atonement for his kins- 
man according to the flesh. I have shared his 
continual sorrow of heart from this cause. 

4. Nor do I find this perfect rest of a soul in 
full trust in Christ an easy-going, lazy optimism, 
which occupies the rocking-chair, indifferent 
to all coming events, and believes that every 
thing, even gigantic social and political evils, 
are all working out the highest good. I find 
myself, by tongue and pen and vote, antago- 
nizing every movement of Satan in society, 
in politics, and in literature. I have forebod- 
ings when selfish and wicked men are lifted 
into power ; and I can claim the promise that 
" all things work together for good " only after 
a vigorous resistance to sin in every form. I 
write this just after casting my ballot for a pro- 
hibitory Governor of Massachusetts, in the en- 



292 Mile-Stone Papers. 

deavor to build a dyke against that sea of 
drunkenness which is fast engulfing this historic 
commonwealth. My candidate was not elected, 
but personally, though not for the State, I can 
claim the promise that all things are working 
out many a great day's work for me. " Things 
to come are yours." 

5. This rest does not exclude the strong 
feeling of disapprobation where a manifest 
wrong is done to another or to myself. It is 
not the office' of the Holy Spirit to dull the 
moral perception, and deaden the moral feeling 
which naturally accompanies such a perception. 
The unfallen angels and the holy God must be 
endowed with such a sense of justice that they 
instinctively condemn every violation of the 
moral law. 

An old English divine taught good moral 
philosophy when he said that a soul that could 
not feel a righteous indignation in the presence 
of glaring injustice was as defective as a man 
who had a withered muscle. This feeling of 
moral disapprobation must not be confounded 
with a desire to inflict suffering on the offender. 
We may keenly feel a wrong while we calmly 
leave its punishment to the Judge of the quick 
and the dead, praying for the timely repent- 
ance and salvation of the wrong-doer. 

After this negative view we turn the leaf, and 
read the positive side. 



Seven Sabbatic Years. 293 

I. It is a deliverance from unsatisfied cravings. 

" Man has a soul of vast desires, 

Which burns within with quenchless fires." 

In this unappeasable longing for something 
yet unattained I trace the features of God in 
the human soul. If man is in the image of his 
Creator, there must be a capacity in his nature 
which only the Infinite can fill. When filled 
with all the fullness of God, the soul for the 
first time experiences rest from unsatisfied de- 
sire. But only so long as we continue to drink 
from this overflowing fountain shall we be 
satisfied. "He that believeth {perpetually — 
see the Greek) on me shall {by no means — 
strengthened negative) never thirst." It is the 
instinctive feeling that soul-thirst will follow, 
if we cease drinking. 

2. Release from that irksomeness of Chris- 
tian service which characterizes a subtle legal- 
ism. The yoke of Christ chafes when sin still 
lurks in the soul. When we do not in all re- 
spects freely will what God wills, we are carrying 
a burden up hill. But when full trust in Christ 
brings us into perfect harmony with God, both 
the burden and the hill suddenly vanish, and 
we begin to sing : — 

11 1 worship thee, sweet will of God, 

And all thy ways adore ; 
And every day I live, I seem 

To love thee more and more." 



294 Mile-Stone Papers. 

Was not Jesus addressing justified souls still 
wrestling with inbred sin when he promised 
rest to those who labor and are heavy laden ? 
Unawakened sinners feel at ease under the 
yoke of sin — the ease of spiritual stupor. Only 
the initially saved feel the pressure of the yoke 
and their own inability to throw it off. Christ 
completes their deliverance from a sense of 
servility when they come to him, as the Giver 
of rest, as well as the Forgiver of sins. 

Says Olshausen : " The discord in man is not 
immediately removed after his entering into 
the element of the good. For this reason the 
Redeemer speaks also of a yoke and a burden 
which he himself imposes, which is only felt by 
man so far as he is still encumbered by sin ; 
his nobler nature feels Christ's Spirit and life 
to be a homogeneous element." Hence the 
entire removal of sin is easement from Christ's 
burden. We are then no longer yoked, but 
free oxen in infinite clover. This is the idea 
of this celebrated annotator, only he would 
put the broken yoke of inbred sin and the 
clover beyond the river. " There is rest be- 
yond the river." May a new order of anointed 
poets arise, who will bring back to mortals on 
this side the river the good things which by a 
sad mistake have been transported to the other 
shore ! May the revisers of the Bible correctly 
put a comma instead of a period between the 



Seven Sabbatic Years. 295 

ninth and the tenth verses of 1 Cor. ii, so that 
the English reader may no longer be led astray 
from the true meaning of the Spirit, the de- 
scription of the believer's heaven on earth, 
when Christ is spiritually manifested to the 
soul in all the fullness of his love by the abid- 
ing Comforter and Sanctifier. (See John xiv, 
21, and xvi, 14.) 

3. Rest from that original tendency to sin 
inherent in fallen humanity. This is our testi- 
mony, not our mere theory. We no longer 
read with incredulous wonder the definition of 
the full assurance of faith written by the Ger- 
man, Arvid Gradin, at the request of John 
Wesley : — 

" Repose in the blood of Christ; a firm con- 
fidence toward God, and persuasion of his 
favor; the highest tranquillity, serenity, and 
peace of mind, with a deliverance from every 
fleshly desire, and a cessation of all, even in- 
ward sins." 

4. Salvation from doubt, the disturber of 
the soul's peace. This is an element of the 
uninterrupted Sabbath of love made perfect, 
and it differs from the ordinary witness of the 
Spirit in two particulars — it is abiding and not 
intermittent ; and it attests purity as well as 
pardon. 

5. Rest from worry and fear of future ill. 
Why should I go about like fabled Atlas, carry- 



296 Mile-Stone Papers. 

ing the world on my shoulders, since I have 
found the real Atlas, the divine Burden-bearer, 
Jesus Christ ? " Casting all your care on him." 
Alford's comment is precious, because by his 
critical scholarship he brings out an idea not 
expressed in the English version : " Casting 
(once for all, by an act which includes the life) 
all your anxiety, the whole of it, not every 
anxiety as it arises ; for none will arise if this 
transference has been effectually made." This 
is what I term rest from worry, rest attained 
by a single act of trust, and retained, not by 
spasms of faith, but by a habit of reliance on 
the Son of God, the King of Glory. 

" Now rest, my long-divided heart ; 
Fixed on this blissful center, rest." 

The reader will fall into a great error if he 
infers that I have had no tribulations and bit- 
ter cups during these Sabbatic years. Jesus 
was a man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief, arising from the sins of men, yet he ever 
carried in his bosom a repose too deep for 
human plummet to sound — the peace of God 
which passeth all understanding. The dis- 
ciple is as his Lord. St. Paul was cast down, 
but not cast away ; sorrowful, yet always re- 
joicing. Thus the hemisphere of my soul 
which has been turned toward Christ has been 
filled with perpetual sunlight, while that turned 



Seven Sabbatic Years. - 297 

toward sinners has been in the shade. Thanks 
be unto God, the joy of heaven will not be 
hemispherical, but spherical and full-orbed. 
" There the wicked cease from troubling, and 
the weary are AT REST." 

Meanwhile, this happy pilgrim pillows his 
head upon his knapsack in the lengthening 
shadow of his seventh mile-stone, and, with 
his face toward the New Jerusalem, snatches 
a moment's repose. 

" Here in the body pent, absent from Him I roam ; 
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent a day's march nearer 
home." 



THE END. 



Daniel Quorm and His Religious Notions. 

By Ma&k Guy Pearse. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 

Price, $i. 



NOTICES BY THE ENGLISH PEESS. 

There is a reality and freshness about the book that will be 
sure to render it a favorite wherever it is known. . . . We 
heartily thank the author for this fresh and readable book. — 
Christian Age. 

Rich in Cornish anecdotes and passages from the simple 
annals of the poor, Mr. Pearse's book must be popular, and 
being full of Gospel truth cannot fail to be useful. — Sword 
and Trowel. 

Mr. Pearse writes with a sure pen, with a keen apprecia- 
tion of humor, and a wide knowledge of human nature. . . . 
Handsomely got up, well illustrated. His characters, when 
elaborated, are not mere shadows, but stand boldly out as 
people who live, move, and talk. . . . Bright sketches well 
calculated to serve Methodism, wherever known. . . . The 
volume deserves the widest circulation. — Watchman. 

This book is worthy of the special notice of the class-lead- 
ers of Methodism, while all devout Christians may find in it 
amid beauty, humor, and pathos, words profitable for direc 
tion and instruction. — Methodist Recorder. 

We warmly commend, as one of the most bright, sparkling, 
racy books that we have seen for many a day. Mr. Pearse 
has rare power in sketching character. Some of the touches 
in this book could hardly be exceeded. — Irish Evangelist. 

The readers of this Magazine have no need to be told how 
well worth knowing is "Daniel Quorm," and how full of 
shrewdness, pith, and point are his "religious notions." . . . 
We *ill only add that the getting up of this book is most 
tastctul and attractive. . . . The illustrations are vigorous 
and life-like. — City Road Magazine, 



DANIEL QUOKM, AND HIS EEUGiOTJS NOTIONS. 



OPINIONS OF THE AMEEICAN PRESS. 

Daniel Quorm is represented as a shoemaker in an English 
mining town, occupying the responsible position of Meth- 
odist class-leader, and Society steward. He is illiterate, and 
yet a deep student of the word of God and of the human soul. 
He has evidently learned one of the most difficult of lessons. 
He knows himself; he seems to have learned thoroughly the 
workings of the Spirit with his own heart. With a rich 
imagination, he clothes his thoughts with a drapery that is at 
once grotesque and enchanting. One can hardly open it at 
any point and read, and not be led down into the deep things 
of God. — Northern Christian Advocate. 

There is a vein of dry religious humor and satire running 
through this book, that is of the rollicking type. No person 
who is familiar with old-time notions among the people called 
Methodists, especially in old England, but can readily see 
the striking contrast between them and this progressive age. 
Aside from its Methodistic flavor, there is rich reading, and 
instructive, too, for all Christians. — Pittsburgh Commercial. 

This is a fac simile, engravings and all, of the English 
edition of this remarkable work previously noticed in these 
pages. Of its racy style our readers have had a specimen in 
the chapters reprinted in this magazine. We are sure that 
they will whet their appetite for the feast of good things in 
the volume itself. The English sale of this book has averaged 
a thousand a month since its issue — a very remarkable literary 
success. It is the best presentation extant of Cornish Meth- 
odism, with its homely shrewdness, its pathos, its picturesque- 
ness, and its spiritual fervor. — Canadian Methodist. 

Daniel Quorm was a Methodist "class-leader," "Society 
steward," and shoemaker in a small mining village in En- 
gland. Possessed of much quiet humor, and a large amount 
of shrewd common sense, united with a deep Christian ex- 
perience, he was well prepared to be a religious teacher.— 
Western Christian Advocate. 



Published by NELSON &c PHILLIPS, 

805 Broadway, New York. 

COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF METHODISM. 

By JAMES PORTER, D.D. 

Orxa volume. 12mo. 601 pages. $1 73. 

This is a new work, having little connection with " The Com- 
i kndium of Methodism." That was chiefly devoted to our doc- 
trines, government, and prudential economy. This is purely 
historical, reaching from the beginning to the present time, and 
presenting the leading facts and fortunes of the Church in their 
actual and philosophical relations and bearings. It was written 
to accommodate that large class of Methodists who have not the 
time to read Drs. Bangs and Stevens' more elaborate histories, 
or the means to purchase them. Preachers who have not com- 
plete sets of our Benevolent Reports, General Minutes, and Jour- 
nals, (and few have them,) will often find its numerous tables an 
excellent substitute. 

The first part is appropriately ornamented with a steel engrav- 
ing of Mr. Wesley, and the second with a similar one of Mr. 
Asbury. The whole is rendered available by a copious "Topical 
Index." How the work has been received may be inferred from 
the following extracts : — 

Every Methodist, it matters not to what branch of the Methodist family 
he belongs, should have at least a correct general knowledge of the history 
of Methodism. As the various Methodist bodies had a common origin, and 
for a long time a common history, any well-prepared history of Methodism 
must, as a matter of course, be interesting and valuable to them all. Nu- 
merous works of this kind have been published. But there was need of a 
more compendious history, coming down to the present, and presented in 
such a compass and form as to come within the reach of all. The present 
volume meets this demand. — Home Companion. 

The history of Methodism is locked in large volumes that some cannot 
buy and few will read. That this growing people may learn the trials and 
triumphs of their fathers, this volume has been written. The work it lays 
out for itself has been well done. It is interesting and pointed in style, and 
eloquent at times. The facts are grouped under taking heads, and the par- 
agraphs are not too long or the details too much dwelt upon. . . . The 
work carries the history of the Church to a later point than any other his- 
tory, reaching the noted Book Concern troubles. . . . The book is issued 
in an attractive type and form, and care has been used in reading it, with 
taste in composing and arranging the matter. This history deserves to be 
popular, not only in the Methodist Church, but among others.— Cincinnati 
Times. 

The Christian Statesman says: There is, perhaps, no person in the 
Methodist Church better qualified to accomplish the work of preparing a 
compendious history of Methodism than Dr. Porter, the author of the vol- 
ume before us. He has lived through its most important and stirring 
crises, and has always been recognized as a close observer and careful stu- 
dent of its history and policy. This new history which he has prepared is 
intentionally comprehensive in its scope, and available to all. "We commend 
it particularly to all young people, as be\ ig well calculated to inspire them 
with zeal for the Church and love for the great ca se of Christianity. 



yo 
M 



Published by NELSON & PHILLIPS, 

805 Broadway, New York. 

THE REVISED COMPENDIUM OF METHODISM. 

One vol. 12mo. 506 pages. $1 75. By James Porteb, D.D. 

The original work was issued in 1851, and passed through 
many editions. It was wholly or partially translated into several 
different languages, and indorsed by the highest authorities of 
the Church, oeing honored with a place in the course of study for 

oung preachers. Old Dr. Bond said he would be willing that 

T ethodism should be judged by it. 

Owing to the rapid progress of the Church in the different de- 
partments of her work, and some modification in our government 
and prudential arrangements, (not in our doctrines,) the work 
required revision, which has lately been executed by the author, 
so as to improve upon its original excellence, and adapt it to the 
present time and circumstances. Its rank as a representative 
book is fairly indicated by the following notices : — 

" The Compendium of Methodism," by James Porter, D.D. This work 
has taken a new lease of life, and is going forth, with its recent revision by 
the author, to tell the wonderful story of the greatest religious work of the 
nineteenth century. It has lost nothing of its fidelity to the cause it 
represents. — Christian Statesman. 

It is not a criticism oi» Methodist usages, but a statement and defense of 
them. — Quarterly Review. 

Though it is written from the stand-point of the Northern M. E. Church, 
yet, mutatis mutandis, it suits well for Ecumenical Methodism. — Nash- 
ville Christian Advocate. 

It is, in fact, a digest of Methodism. The arrangement and execution of 
the several parts is admirable. The style is a model of perspicuity, ease, 
and vigor ; and, in point of condensation, the volume is literally crowded 
with important matter. — Northern Advocate. 

It is precisely the volume needed to instruct our people in the peculiari- 
ties of our system. We commend it as an acknowledged authority. — 
A. Stevens, LL.D. 

I have just finished the reading of this book, and I wish to express my 
decided approbation of it. it should be a family book, a Sunday-school 
book, and 1 would add especially, a text-book for all candidates for 
the ministry. — J. T. Peck,, D.D. 

"We have examined the book, and most cordially recommend our friends, 
one and all. to procure it immediately. No Methodist can study it 
without profit, and gratitude to the great head of the Church. — Christian 
Guardian, Toronto. 

It has brought hundreds of unsettled converts to Methodism. 
Let it be read, and pushed out among the people. It should be 
worked into every library as far as possible. Methodism needs 
to be better understood. 



Published by NELSON & PHILLIPS, 

805 Broadway, New York. 

THE WINNING WORKER; 

Or, The Possibilities, Duty, and Methods of Doing Good to Men. 

With a striking frontispiece, representing complete conse- 
cration to God and his service. 16mo. S00 pages. By 
Rev. James Porter, D.D., with an Introduction by Rev. Dr. 
J. A. M. Chapmax, of St. Paul's M. E. Church, New York. 

This taking work has been out but a few months, and is in its 
/ econd edition. It assumes that every body can do good of some 
*ort, somewhere, and every day ; and shows how, and why, in 
eighteen chapters of direct, pointed, practical instructions. It 
abounds " in pertinent illustrations, seasonable advice, and fruit- 
ful suggestions." It is not a book on revivals, but every-day work 
ir. Church and out, covering all our social relations and possible 
a ctivities. 



" For many a day it has not been our privilege to read a book 
that is so full of the spirit of Christianity. . . . We commend it 
to every Christian Worker." — Rev. H. V. Farrar. 

Rev. Mr. Davies, the evangelist, says : " The last chapter, 
headed ' Doing good a means of grace ' is worth the cost of 
the book." Benevolent gentlemen purchase to distribute among 
young people for the good it will do them. It is just the book to 
arouse an idle Church to activity. 

Rev. George Whitaker, Presiding Elder in the New England 
Conference, says : " I am very much pleased with the book. It 
is rich and practical, and presented in the doctor's happiest 
style. It should be in the hands of all our members. I do not 
see how it can help doing a great deal of good." 

The Provincial Wesley an says : The scope and design of the 
work may be seen from some of the topics discussed, among 
which are: "The proper mission life;" "The possibilities of 
usefulness;" "Importance of right aims;" "A mind for the 
work;" "Religion demonstrable by experience ;" "Power with 
God and with men;" "Pleasing men for their good;" "The 
power of self-sacrifice;" " Courage and independence ;" "Sources 
of weakness and iefeat ;" "Doing good a means of grace." These 
and kindred themes fixe treated with great clearness and force, 
and constitute a very convenient and valuable hand-book for 
every pastor and Christian worker, and may be read with great 

grofit by all who desire to understand the design and aim of the 
liristian life. Price. $1 25 



Published by NELSON & PHILLIPS, 

805 Broadway, New York. 
FIVE IBOOIKLS 

Relating to Different Interests of Methodism. 

BY JAMES PORTER, D.D. 

Published, by our Book Concerns, and on sale at all 
their Depositories, as follows: 

REVIVALS OF RELIGION. 

Showing their Theory, Means, Obstructions, Importance, 
and Perversions, with the duty of Christiansen regard to them. 
Just revised and enlarged to meet the exigencies of the times. 

The enlargement relates to new phases of the subject, which 
threaten disaster to the cause of God. It is the only work in 
our extended catalogue which assumes to cover the whole ground. 
The following headings of its twelve chapters suggest its range: 

Religion: Its Nature and Manifestations. Religion: Its Condi- 
tionality. A Revival of Religion Defined. Preaching, a Means of 
Promoting Revivals. Pastoral and other Duties connected with them. 
Prayer, a Means of Revivals. OtherMeans. Obstructions to them. 
Objections. Manner of Improving them. Importance of them. New 
Phases of the Subject Considered. 

Dr. J. P. Newman says, in his introduction to this edition, that 
he adopted the book and followed its directions, and a glorious 
revival followed. He declares also that " it is the most suggest- 
ive book on the subject in the English language. No pastor 
should be without a copy. A copy should be in every family in 
the Church." 

This sentiment has been indorsed by many others who have 
noticed the work. 

The Christian Advocate says: "Many a young pastor, who is now 
gray-headed, or in middle life, has found in this work inspiration and sugges- 
tions which did much in molding his subsequent ministry ; and eternity 
will alone disclose how many revivals were toiled for and kindled through 
the influence of this book. We are glad a new edition has been prepared. 
The times called for it, and it is adapted to the times. . . . Dr. Porter 
writes for Methodists, and from a Methodist stand-point. ... He writes 
clearly, directly, and incisively, and out of his own experience. The new 
edition is better than the old one, and in our judgment it is the best work 
on the subject in existence. We advise every young preacher, travel- 
ing and local, and every exhorter as well, to get it." 

Price, $1 25. To Preachers, 88 Cents. 

SUGGESTIONS: 

1. Many ministers claim that they have been greatly assisted 
by this book in revival work — more than by all others. . 

2. Multitudes confess themselves to be ineffective in this work. 

3. Ifthey were to study this subject as they do some others, 
would it not be likely to increase their power and usefulness ? 






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